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I’m both surprised and happy to see Oaxaca cheese in this list
I’ll have a lancre blue, hold the homicidal rage
What about trisodium citrate or Na3C6H5O7? The emulsion stabilizer that gave the world nacho cheese! Add it to any cheese and it’ll keep the fats from separating during melting, giving you a really smooth consistency!
Tip: reacting baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) with citrus juice (citric acid) will yeild a solution of sodium citrate of you don’t have any/don’t want to buy some just to try it out
What ratio?
Honestly I eyeball it haha. Juice a lemon/lime (or 1oz/15ml of juice) and add bicarb a little bit at a time until it stops fizzing. Make sure to stir it well before adding more
Yeah, this is crucial. Some of the cheeses under melting won’t melt easily and will instead break under higher heats. Emulsifiers will prevent breaking and turn a lot of cheeses into melting cheeses.
Where tf is Asiago, ya goddamned bastards
There is something called Melting Salts, Sodium Citrates, that help some of these but they don’t sell it at any store I’ve ever been to.
Sodium citrate is amazing. It’s an emulsifier, which allows the fat to stay bonded with water. Normally the fat and water separates as soon as the cheese melts, and you end up with chunky or gritty cheese sauce. So we use an emulsifier to allow the two to mix smoothly.
Natural emulsifiers are fairly common, but tend to have issues in regards to cooking. For instance, egg yolks contain an emulsifier, but it will scald and denature when it gets hot… Wine also has an emulsifier but has the same issue.
This is why fondue recipes call for wine. It allows the fondue to melt smoothly, and the double-boiler fondue pot ensures the fondue never gets hot enough to denature. It’s also why baking calls for eggs, to allow the oil and water to mix together long enough for the flour to begin cooking.
And the nice part about sodium citrate is that it has a much higher heat tolerance. It’s also a very “dense” emulsifier. In other words, a little bit of sodium citrate will go a long way. You don’t need to worry about accidentally burning your cheese sauce and making it clumpy. (You can still burn the cheese, but it won’t destroy the texture.) If you’re ever making queso for tex-mex, a scoop of sodium citrate will ensure it stays wonderfully smooth.
Most salts have fairly high heat tolerance or burning temperatures compared to things like sugar, probably why sodium citrate works well for this task while use of other biological emulsifiers such as soy lecithin do not. Although, many cheeses have lecithin added during the creation process.
Damnit, now I want some really good fondue …
Fwiw, American is just a mild cheddar processed with sodium citrate.
NileBlue – Making American cheese to debunk a conspiracy
[holds hand out to pat the Piped link bot on its good boi head]
And sometimes it isn’t even cheese at all (since “cheese” needs to contain at least 51% cheese, which American cheese sometimes doesn’t. It is then usually labeled as “cheese product” instead of “cheese”)
For lidl shoppers carski can be stretchy if you put enough of it in or crispy.
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Emmental
Same for raclette. That’s a process, not a cheese name. Might as well call Gruyere “fondue cheese”
I also laugh when folks refer to a cheese variety as “goat.”
(A goat is not cheese)
Big, if true.
But, in Switzerland we have type of cheese we call “fromage a raclette”, so even if it’s a process, we wouldn’t use Emmentaler or gruyere for making a raclette.
My guess is it’s Emmentaler.
This seems to be a very American infographic.
This is a good post. Don’t forget emulsion stabilizers though, like chongli said!
When I see “Оахаса”, my brain assumes it’s Cyrillic and reads it “wah-kha-suh”. I’m not even Eastern European!
Actually that’s pretty close to the proper pronouncation wah-kha-ka
Say that third one 5 times fast.
Shit. Say it once even.
Wa Ha Ka
Gesundheit.
Can’t beat a layer of strong cheddar for flavour, topped with a sprinkling of mozzarella for texture.
What about vegan cheeses?
I found that the melt-ability of most vegan cheeses drastically increases if you mix it with a little bit of water and oil before dispersing it.
Its not cheese
iT’s NoT cHeEsE
Some vegan cheeses have more to do with cheese than American cheese
Sorry the truth hurts
they’re currently the wild west and it depends on their intended function and ingredients, in my experience (lactose intolerant ☹️)
my first thought though was “this is a fairly handy guide for food nerds who are into crafting non dairy cheese”
Hard cheese like cheddar doesn’t contain much lactose (if any), and is generally considered OK.
Dairy intolerance is another matter though.
I get symptoms from small amounts of butter and even really aged hard cheese if I don’t take lactase, so at this point I have no idea what’s up with my system. I suspect a fair amount of it is psychosomatic 😭
I used to spend a borderline irresponsible amount of money on fancy cheese though so at least that’s one less vice :P
It’s all over the board. Most don’t melt, in my experience. Some become crispy.
this is paneer erasure and I won’t stand for it
I like referring to halloumi as European Paneer.
