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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.
It’s in American cheese
Where are the other about 800 cheeses?
Soft cheese = stringy melt
Young/semi-firm cheese = creamy melt
Aged/hard cheeses = no/difficult to melt
Exceptions: halloumi and paneer will sear like meat and not melt
Pecorino and parmesan can be melted but will precipitate out of sauces if they are brought above 180 f (82.2 c)
An article on the science of cheese melting for the curious
I know, right! It would be cool to have info on some other common cheeses as well.
I’m wondering primarily which category parmesan falls under, but I think it’s more on the meltier side.
I know Parmesan melts, but only at relatively high temperatures and not that well.
If you want something similar enough to Parmesan that melts, get Asiago.
The super non-melty ones? Gordon Ramsay has them to make grilled cheese sandwiches.
this is paneer erasure and I won’t stand for it
I like referring to halloumi as European Paneer.
Fwiw, American is just a mild cheddar processed with sodium citrate.
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”)
Yah, the labeling laws are overly complicated in the favor of corporate bullshit. It hides the stuff that’s little more than oil that’s been thickened up and laced with flavoring behind the association with what was originally just cheese with some emulsifier.
I’ve got family that runs a dairy farm, and makes some cheese, the basic kind that’s used to make old school American. There’s about three grades of things that are allowed to have cheese on the label, with other words in fine print before they start saying “American slices”, or “sandwich slices” and can’t put cheese on there.
NileBlue – Making American cheese to debunk a conspiracy
[holds hand out to pat the Piped link bot on its good boi head]
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.
If you don’t want to bother with the $5 bag, (which honestly you should just go ahead and get, but whatever…) then you can make a dirty form at home with lemon juice and baking soda. Combine the two, and the resulting product is trisodium citrate. Basically, take a squeeze of lemon juice, and stir baking soda in until it stops fizzing. Now you have something that tastes vaguely lemony, but will melt cheese like a motherfucker. Lab grade sodium citrate doesn’t have that lemony flavor, so it won’t skew the flavor of your dishes.
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.
I’ve never gotten Brie to melt smoothly, it just turns into an oily puddle of melted plastic. What’s the trick? I’m correct in cutting off the rind first, right?
You have to add a bit starch.
Good idea, thanks!
You have to keep the rind on if you’re baking it. Also, the rind is edible and (if you like mushrooms) tasty!
I love the rind, but I assumed that was the source of the oil I’m seeing. It doesn’t seem to be!
Brie is just kinda greasy. The oil you’re seeing is supposed to be there. Understandably off-putting for some. What I like to do is bake it with something that can kind of soak up/ conceal the excess oil. My go to is sauteing cubed sweet potatoes in olive oil with onions, garlic, salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme and a pinch of cinnamon. Once they’re a little over halfway cooked with some decent browning I’ll surround the brie with the potatoes and chuck it in the oven to bake the brie and finish the potatoes. Top that with some brown sugar baked pear (sliced pear with a bit of salt, some good cinnamon and fresh nutmeg, splash of white wine, cooked in a little sugar to make a “sauce” ) and you’ve got a feast fit for a king (or three haha)
Get some sodium citrate powder, it’s the secret to making smooth cheese sauce.
I’ll look into it! Saw it elsewhere in the thread.
Really low heat is my trick, all cheeses have a point where they separate and Brie is already basically melted to begin with, so just get it extra warm but not hot and you’re golden.
Anybody know if the maggots will melt if I heat my casu martzu?
No. But you can fry until crisp in whale blubber. Dust fried cheese and maggots with midges and serve with a garnish of dung beetle legs.
Which of the Swiss cheeses is the one that people call “Swiss cheese”?
My guess is it’s Emmentaler.
This seems to be a very American infographic.
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.
Emmental
If you’ve got a quality cheese shop on hand, try Shropshire Blue. A strong cheddar with blue cheese veins.
I’ll have a lancre blue, hold the homicidal rage
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Damnit, now I want some really good fondue …
This is a good post. Don’t forget emulsion stabilizers though, like chongli said!
Can’t beat a layer of strong cheddar for flavour, topped with a sprinkling of mozzarella for texture.
I’m both surprised and happy to see Oaxaca cheese in this list
I want a cemita now.
