I'd like to share with you a super simple way to make a soft cheese with raw milk!

This is so simple. The hardest thing is getting over our fear of leaving dairy products out of the fridge!

You know how many ingredients you need?
ONE
That's it. Just milk. Milk, and only milk.
No rennet. No vinegar. No cooking!

The steps for this are simple. Start out with fresh, raw milk. Put the desired amount into a jar with a lid.
Pasteurized milk tends to behave differently than raw milk. I have not tried using that, so I am not sure if it will work for this recipe. You're welcome to try though!

Now, that step was actually pretty important! I tried this with a pot of milk. It was a stainless steel pot with a snug fitting lid, and I thought this would work great, since I had a lot of extra milk to use!

Well, I followed the steps, and the result was SMELLY! It stunk. I went ahead and thought, maybe it is just strong flavored and will be okay. I rinsed the curd several times and drained it, and it made stinky, bitter cheese. No bueno!

I did a little research and found that you need to fill your container and leave little headspace, and have a lid that seals to prevent the introduction of bad bacteria. (You know, the kind that makes your cheese SMELLY!)

I tried again with a mason jar. Filled it up with fresh milk, put the lid on, and left it on the counter for several days.

Crazy, right?!
Nope. Not crazy. Unless you mean crazy-easy cheese!

You just let it set there until your milk clabbers. Meaning gets thick, like yogurt. It takes 3-4 days in my house, but this can vary depending on temperature.

Now you can go ahead and strain the curd at this point, and get a super mild, soft cheese, or you can wait another half day or so until the curd separates and you can see curds and whey in the jar. The difference here is you get a somewhat firmer and stronger-flavored cheese.

Pour curd into cloth of choice. I opted for an ugly old towel.

Hang it up!

People generally use cheesecloth to strain the cheese, but any clean fabric will do. I have used clean Tshirts and dishtowels. The key word here is CLEAN. You need to pour the curd into the cloth, bring up the corners and find somewhere to hang it. I have a cupboard I like to use. I use zipties to tie my cheesy bundle shut, and to hang it up on the cupboard handle. Place a bowl underneath the draining cheese. It will take a couple hours to finish draining.

When done, it will look like this:

Then you can mix in some salt, and some herbs if desired, and voila!! Countertop cheese! Put it in the fridge and use like you would cream cheese, cottage cheese, or mix it into things like you would ricotta or other soft cheeses.

I mixed in pink salt and thyme.

This might not be everyone's cuppa tea, but it is a pretty neat way to make homemade cheese, especially if you have an excess of raw milk and don't have time to make regular cheese!

Thanks for reading! Have a lovely day!

badges courtesy of @daddykirbs