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Freezing Cheese

By Ellen Brown

Selecting High-Quality Cheese: When selecting cheeses for freezing, avoid those with dry or cracked edges, mold that doesn't belong or cheeses that appear greasy on the surface. Check the date of prepackaged cheese to make sure it hasn't expired. Cheese keeps best in the refrigerator and freezing it will sacrifice some of its quality. Hard or semi-hard cheese can be frozen, but it may become develop a crumbly or mealy texture during freezing. However, it will retain its flavor and work just fine for cooking.

Best Cheeses to Freeze: Camembert, Cheddar, Edam, Mozzarella, Muenster, Parmesan, Port du Salut, Provolone, Romano, and Swiss. Blue Cheese will retain its flavor, but become crumbly. Soft cheeses should be frozen when they reached the desired ripeness.

Worst Cheeses to Freeze: Container cream cheese, cottage cheese and ricotta cheese do not freeze well. Blocks of cream cheese can be frozen for later use as an ingredient in recipes.

Preparing for Freezing: Hard and semi-hard cheeses can be grated, sliced or cut into blocks for freezing.

Suitable Packaging: Wrap wheels, blocks or slices of cheese tightly in plastic or heavy-duty aluminum foil. Separate slices of cheese with wax paper before freezing. Grated cheese stores well in airtight containers.

Maximum Storage Time: Freeze soft cheese and cheese spreads and dips for 1 month, and hard and semi-hard cheese for 3 to 6 months.

Thawing: Thaw the amount of cheese needed for consumption in the refrigerator, then serve it at room temperature. Cheese used for cooking should also be thawed in the refrigerator.

Tips & Shortcuts: Hard cheese grates well when it's frozen.

Refrigerating Cheese: All natural cheese continues to age and change when stored. As a general rule, the softer the cheese, the more quickly it will spoil. If a small amount of mold appears on cheese, remove it and save the rest. Refrigerate soft cheese for 3 to 4 days, hard to semi-hard cheese for 2 to 3 weeks and cheese spreads and dips for 1 to 2 weeks.

Feedback About This Post:

What about Feta?

I had come to this site specifically for information about freezing feta because I've not frozen this type before and I received some as a gift, it is more than we can eat in a month. I'm guessing since it is crumbly already it should be ok to freeze?
I suppose I will just try it, and hope it will still be just as good afterwards.

Thankyou for all the information you provided us! :)

Post By Beverly near Tallahassee (Guest Post)

RE: Freezing Cheese

Good stuff! Really resolved my queries
Thanks

Post By James (Guest Post)

RE: Freezing Cheese

This Is Great. My Local Grocery Has A Sale This Week Where I Can Get Kraft 8 Oz Packs Of Shreaded Or Blocks For $1.00. But You Have To Buy 9 Items In A Mix And Match Sale. I Can Purchase Some Cheeses And Keep Them In The Freezer. ;0)
Roberta

Post By Roberta (Guest Post)

RE: Freezing Cheese

Thank you for such a concise guide to freezing cheese. It provided all the information I needed.

Post By Sheralee (Guest Post)

RE: Re-Freezing Thawed Cheese

Found our freezer door open - almost everything had thawed including various cheeses, i.e., provolone, swiss, regular American sliced cheese, block cheddar.
Can we re-freeze the thawed cheese.
Please email me at sahsah @ gmail . com
Thank you

Post By Shelia H (Guest Post)

RE: Freezing Cheese

hi I have calculated the cost of block cheese versus grated cheese here at our local market (1 to our town). It comes out to the same $$$ so I buy it already grated & pop it in the freezer when I get home. Will last way past the use by date & to my family there is no difference. Use it frozen for pizza, quesadillas, nachos whatever we might need. If there are big clumps just use a rolling pin, or meat tenderizer to break up or bang on the counter. And if you are lucky enough to get it on markdown special even better.

Post By lynn (Guest Post)

RE: Freezing Cheese

I buy a few blocks of cheddar when on sale and
stick it in freezer. When I need shredded cheese for
enchiladas I just defrost a block and it crumbles.
No grating for me!

Post by meoowmom

RE: Freezing Cheese

I love the cornstarch idea! I'll have to try it. Also, a tip for grating cheese: I DON"T grate my cheese. I just put it in the food processor and chop it into "crumbles". I like the crumbles better anyway and it makes it SO much easier than grating. Plus, the kids love the crumbles as a snack

Post by scruggle

RE: Freezing Cheese

I grate my cheddar cheese when I bring it home from the store. I grate the whole thing and put it in a gallon size ziploc. The trick is to add a heaping tablespoon of cornstarch to your bag of cheese and shake it all around to coat well.

This keeps it from refreezing to one large lump again. It does not affect taste or quality. Now it is ready when you are instantly for tacos, salads, spaghetti, etc.

Post By Paula in Ga. (Guest Post)

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