I feel a little weird telling you how to make homemade cheese today when usually we talk about how to get dinner on the table as fast as possible! Maybe it would help if I started by telling you that paneer cheese is the easiest homemade cheese I’ve ever made, and there are certain foods I make an exception for in the time department, where the end definitely justifies the means! If you’re lucky enough to buy fresh cheeses in your area, you probably would never need to get your cheesemaking on, but here in Montana if you want fresh cheese you’re probably going to be making it! The best thing about making fresh cheeses, is they’re so easy and they’re outrageously delicious! If you’ve ever tackled weekend projects like making your own bread, jams, and such, then you’re more than ready to make fresh cheese because it’s way… easier! I’ve only made a fresh cheeses myself as the aged cheeses require more equipment and ingredients. For fresh cheeses you only need a large stockpot with a heavy bottom and sometimes a thermometer – that’s really all it takes to make ricotta or paneer cheese! We’ll probably talk more about ricotta this summer because few things beat the pleasure of fresh cheese drizzled with good quality olive oil and sprinkled with chopped fresh herbs! Add to that a side of vine ripe heirloom tomatoes, some finishing sea salt, and you’ve got an unbeatable meal! But for now we’re talking about paneer cheese which is a fresh cheese the holds it’s shape when it’s cooked, meaning you can sauté or grill it just like you would with chicken or veggies. When it’s sautéed it takes on a mozzarella stick like flavor but it retains it’s shape instead of melting, making the possibilities endless!
It’s really important to use a really large heavy bottomed pot when you’re making cheese. Right before milk comes to a boil it expands to almost double in size, so you want lots of extra room! In the above picture, you can see I pushed my limits a bit and there was definitely a little spill-over. When the milk comes to temperature, it will be all foamy on top like it is in the picture.
Once you add the lemon juice, the curds will start to form right away, leaving behind a yellowish liquid. One of the most important steps in cheese making is to let the cheese curds sit for the allotted time – there’s really no speeding it up! The cheese curds become more solid during this resting phase and that’s how they hold together when it’s time to drain off the extra liquid which is called whey in the cheese world!
Here, you can see there’s definitely some well defined cheese curds visible after the resting time!
I use a cheesecloth folded into quarters for a 4 layer cheesecloth, this is useful for making sure your precious cheese curds don’t slip through a less dense cloth, and right down the drain! To achieve the firm texture of this cheese, it goes through a draining process where it’s been weighted down to help press any extra liquid out. I didn’t use any fancy equipment for the pressing process, I just folded the corners of the cheesecloth together into quarters. Then I took a dinner plate and placed a salad plate on top of it turned upside down – when you place the cheese packet on the upside down salad plate, the extra liquid runs off onto the dinner plate below. For weighting down the cheese I just filled a large pot halfway up with water and placed the pot over the top of the cheese packet.
And… here’s the unwrapped final product – a thing of beauty!
Once your paneer cheese has drained, you can cut it up and use it however you’d like! It keeps fresh in it’s uncooked state for about a week in an airtight container in the fridge.
Here’s a little of that crispy goodness I mentioned earlier – sautéed paneer cheese is really addicting!
The most important thing when making your own cheese is to use pastuerized milk (or raw if that’s your choice). Ultra-pastuerized milk doesn’t work for cheese making, something about the high temperatures the milk is exposed to in the process renders it absolutely useless for cheesemaking! For recipe inspiration try my Indian Paneer Stir-Fry (picture above). Once you get that first taste of fried paneer cheese, I’m sure all sorts of ideas will start coming about how to use this marvel of a cheese! No reviews
