If You’re Still Wrapping Your Cheese in Plastic, We Need to Talk

Don’t let your leftover cheese go to waste. With the suitable storage methods, you’ll be able to maintain that chunk of gouda or wedge of brie tasting contemporary days (and even weeks) later. While tossing it right into a plastic bag or wrapping it in cling movie could be the default transfer, that is not how the professionals do it.

To get the true scoop on cheese storage, I spoke with John Montez, a licensed cheese skilled and the training lead at New York’s legendary Murray’s Cheese. He broke down precisely the best way to deal with your cheese proper, regardless of the sort, so it stays flavorful and prepared to your subsequent snack assault.

“Cheese is a preserved product,” Montez mentioned. “It’s excessive in acid and salt and has a variety of the water eliminated in comparison with milk. So it is uncommon that you’d ever must throw out a bit of cheese.” Cheese, in different phrases, is constructed to final; ergo, an funding price having.

With Montez’s assist, this is what that you must learn about cheese to grasp its getting old potential, and about the best way to greatest minimize and retailer your fancy cheese so that you by no means must throw it away. 

Cheese is a dwelling factor

Certain cheeses, like blue cheese, put on their mildew extra proudly than others, however it might be useful to think about cheese because the managed decay of milk and know that there is just about all the time mildew concerned regardless. The snowy-white rind of brie and different bloomy-rind cheeses are a sort of mildew, as is the mottled outer floor of a firmer cheese like Gruyere. Fear not. If you have ever taken a probiotic, you already inherently perceive that not all microbes are dangerous.

Read extra: There’s a Lot of Fake Parmesan Cheese Out There. Here’s How to Tell

This is all to say that, to begin with, just a little further mildew in your cheese should not deter you from hanging on to it. “If you see it molds up just a little bit, usually you’ll be able to scrape off that mildew and it is no downside,” says Montez. Because of the dearth of water content material in cheese, meals mildew cannot penetrate it very deeply like it could with many different meals merchandise. “Look out if it is black mildew or one thing like that,” he says, “however the factor is, it is uncommon {that a} piece of cheese turns into unsafe to eat. It’s going to change into unpalatable to you lengthy earlier than it is unsafe.”

Cut your cheese so it is simpler to wrap

Keeping the cheese palatable, then, is the true aim. How you retailer your cheese goes to have the most important impression on its longevity — however how, when and what you chop it with may also play a component in its ongoing taste and texture success. Precise cuts that depart flat surfaces make it simpler to wrap in the simplest method, and protecting the cheese complete for so long as doable can be useful to its longevity. 

“Minimizing the floor space (uncovered to air) goes to forestall cheese from drying out or getting moldy,” says Montez. “So, for instance, if you are going to prep cheese forward of time for a celebration, the longer you’ll be able to depart it as a complete piece, the higher,” or if you happen to’re a ordinary meal-prepper, resist the urge to chop up a complete chunk of cheese for simpler entry, and simply minimize as you go.

As for making clear cuts, “you may get carried out just about any job that you must get carried out with a chef’s knife,” says Montez. “When it involves softer cheeses, a skeleton knife is nice to have as one thing that reduces the knife’s drag, or a wire-based cheese harp which is utilized in a variety of cheese outlets. Nowadays, you’ll be able to even discover cheese boards which have a built-in wire. These are actually good for leaving as a lot of the rind intact on bloomy rind and different gentle cheeses as you’ll be able to.”

Wrap your cheese, however do not use plastic

One of the 2 foremost targets when wrapping and storing cheese is to permit just a little little bit of airflow in order that your fancy cheese can nonetheless breathe. “The foremost thought right here is you do not wish to wrap it in plastic,” says Montez, “There are a variety of lively microorganisms in cheese and also you wish to maintain them alive by the point you are going to eat it.” 

If you are questioning why then, was the wedge of precut cheese you acquire from the grocery store or cheese retailer wrapped in plastic, presumably by cheese professionals, the reply is advertising. “It’s largely for show functions,” says Montez, because you’re unlikely to purchase what you’ll be able to’t see. “There are cheese outlets the place they solely wrap in paper, however that is uncommon. If you are an enormous store that strikes a variety of product, it isn’t an issue if you understand if the cheese is wrapped in plastic for a few days, however past that, it may be dangerous for the cheese.”

You can prolong the lifetime of your artisanal cheeses by rewrapping them in paper after you convey them residence. “Formaticum makes nice cheese paper that’s specifically formulated to maintain the surface from drying out whereas permitting the cheese to breathe,” says Montez. “If you do not have cheese paper, wrapping it in wax paper, parchment paper, butcher paper or no matter you might have is nice.”

It can take some severe observe to realize the crisp folds of skilled cheesemongers, consider your cheese as just a little current (which it’s, clearly), and wrap it as if you had been utilizing festive wrapping paper. “You need the paper making contact with the piece of cheese,” says Montez, “so crease as you go, and ensure all the faces of the cheese are contacting the paper in a fair, flat method.” If this appears in any respect intimidating, Formaticum additionally makes useful, cheese storage luggage the place no origami-level folding is required.

How and the place to retailer cheese so it lasts longer

“What you are actually making an attempt to perform while you retailer cheese is protecting the chilly air from the fridge from blowing on it, as a result of that is going to trigger it to dry out extra rapidly,” says Montez. Wrapped cheeses ought to both go right into a drawer inside your fridge, right into a nook the place the fan does not totally attain, and even in a small container with the lid cracked to maintain air circulation accessible.

Hard cheeses, and even some softer cheeses you plan to devour inside a few days, do not essentially even want refrigeration. You can merely search out one thing to cowl them equivalent to a cheese dome, or for the actually dedicated, a cheese grotto. According to Montez: “Parmigiano Reggiano by no means must see your fridge. You can maintain it just about indefinitely at room temperature.” I assume that solutions the query a consumer had on the r/AskCulinary subreddit about freezing cheese — you are able to do it however you do not have to.

For extra info, this is the best way to inform which low cost wines are literally good and how a lot cash it can save you by purchasing at Trader Joe’s as an alternative of the grocery store.

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