What's Going On With Cottage Cheese?

Cottage cheese may seem like a blast from the past, but we never stopped eating it. Not before it was trendy again, not while it was just trendy again, and not after it kinda-sorta faded out again earlier this year. The Serious Eats team is simply a group of people who will always ride hard for cottage cheese. This year, however, amidst our continued cottage cheese conquests, we've opened new containers to find a lot of water, a lot of sourness, and a lot of chunky...chunkiness. But we kept coming back because sometimes, it was also just creamy and well-chunked and great. Eventually, we had no choice but to ask: What is HAPPENING here?

I spoke with Dr. Keely O'Brien, an assistant professor in the Fermentation Science Program at Middle Tennessee State University, to see if she had any thoughts on what's going on in the land of cottage cheese. She previously worked for Big Dairy and has spent years making her own cottage cheese with milk from her dairy cows: Lady, Liberty, and Apple Butter.

How the Cheese Actually Gets Made

To contextualize some of these inconsistencies, Dr. O'Brien began by detailing the process of making cottage cheese. TL;DR: It involves adding bacteria cultures to curdle the milk, fermentation, curd cutting, cooking, and adding flavoring—all processes with immense wiggle room and variables across different producers.

1. Curdling/Fermentation: Acidic substances like bacteria cultures (e.g., Lactobacillus) are added to pasteurized cow's milk, converting the lactose into lactic acid and causing the curds to separate from the whey. Eventually, it becomes a solid mass; Dr. O'Brien typically adds rennet to aid the process, but it's not required. The choice and quantity of culture and/or acid is brand-specific and impacts how tangy the final product tastes.
2. Cutting & Cooking: The curds are sliced into large or small pieces with a curd cutter and then gently heated to a specific temperature to remove more whey. She cooks her curds until they shrink to pea-size and the consistency of clay. The curds provide the texture and mouthfeel of the cottage cheese; a uniform curd size is ideal.
3. Draining/Rinsing: Cutting the curds releases more whey, so the remaining liquid needs to be drained off. Some brands will even rinse the curds to remove some of the acidity before draining. Generally, a longer drain results in drier and firmer cottage cheese. 
4. Dressing/Flavoring: Acidified milk is added to the curds with salt and other additives to create the final product. Every brand has its own "secret sauce" comprised of cream, half-and-half, or even buttermilk to produce the desired creaminess. Varying quantities of sodium and other preservatives are added for flavor and determine how long the cottage cheese lasts on shelves.
   

Why the Inconsistencies, Though?

Between the above and the fact that cottage cheese comes in different fat percentages (like milk (skim, 2%, 4%, etc.) and small and large curd sizes), of course Dr. O'Brien wasn't surprised to hear our team had experienced inconsistencies with regularity, nor was she shocked that these big brands occasionally deliver inconsistent products. Unlike her homemade cottage cheese, the mass-produced batches "have pretty long shelf lives," she said: "You're talking 60 days, plus." A lot can happen in that time (at the store and at home) and cottage cheese should be stored at 40°F (4°C), or lactose in the milk can continue to produce lactic acid and more sourness. And just because it should be stored that way, doesn't mean it always is!

For the best-tasting cottage cheese, she warned, "don't let it sit too long." While I couldn't tell if any of my cheese had been sitting out before it got to me, I could check the expiration dates. They were all at least two weeks away! In fact, Breakstone's sell-by date was more than seven weeks away. Seems like a long time, doesn't it? Time seems like the most likely culprit for the varying QA results. Some additional notes from Dr. O'Brien: "If your cottage cheese is looking too watery, just toss it." She also doesn't think you should rely solely on expiration dates. "When in doubt, use your senses," she told me. "You're a very sensitive instrument."

Side-by-Side Cottage Cheese Comparisons

Over the course of this cottage cheese investigation, I taste-tested eight name-brand varieties labeled small curd with 4% milk fat. I noted how the two samples looked and tasted compared to each other and noted any differences in curd size, amount of dressing, acidity, etc. And wouldn't you know it? There were plenty of differences across pairs of identical products.

Brand 1: Organic Valley Cottage Cheese

Sample A definitely had more tang and noticeably more liquid sitting on the top. Sample B was creamy, and slightly acidic with a few stray larger curds. These two containers have the same expiration date but seem like different batches.

Brand 2: Breakstone's 4% Small Curd Cottage Cheese 

This brand came in mini 4-ounce containers in a snack pack situation. It’s fair to say that samples A and B seemed likely to come from the same batch. The curds looked very small and there was only a little dressing floating on top. Slightly sour, and slightly sweet, but I would say this one’s pretty consistent, which makes sense because they were in the same four-pack.

Brand 3: Good Culture Organic Cottage Cheese, Classic

This one has the highest calorie count per serving taking a look at it it’s pretty liquidy/has a fair amount of dressing. It's only slightly sour and has a tang to it. Sample A and sample B look pretty similar, the only real difference was a stray curd or two that were slightly larger in size.  

Brand 4: Lactaid Milk Fat Cottage Cheese

Both samples have bubbles on the surface and the curds look pretty big considering it’s supposed to be “small curd.” The consistency almost looks like lumpy and homogenous store-bought potato salad. There was no noticeable difference between samples A and B, but they were sweeter than the other brands and lacked acidity. 

Brand 5: Daisy Pure and Natural Cottage Cheese, 4%

Sample A was slightly sour and had fairly consistent curds. Sample B had noticeably more acidity, a few stray larger curds, and more liquid on top. I was not a fan of the dressing; it was just too tangy.

Brand 6: Trader Joe’s Small Curd Cottage Cheese, 4%

Both samples looked similar, an almost solid-looking mass of curds with very little dressing. The flavor was the mildest of all the brands, with medium-sized curds. Sample B had some more bubbles on the surface and the slightest hint of tang, but I doubt I would have noticed a difference if I hadn’t done this comparison.

Brand 7: Friendship Dairies Cottage Cheese, Small Curd, 4% Milkfat, California Style

This brand had the most cheese-like flavor and the mildest taste, the bigger curds were reminiscent of mozzarella. Sample A had virtually no dressing at all, but Sample B had enough dressing that I could see some liquid on my spoon.

Brand 8: Hood Country Style Small Curd Cottage Cheese

Both of these samples were swimming in dressing. Sample A had a smaller and more consistent curd size, seasoned with a very acidic liquid that was a bit watery. Sample B was not quite as tangy and had a creamier dressing overall.