How to make Fresh Mozzarella
I feel a little bad for always talking about the tornado, but... man, it’s really taken over our lives. In 2 days, it’ll be 9 months, and the repairs are still pretty far from over.
This, however, has been a great weekend! As my husband churned out new shelves for the cabinetry, I was able to start unpacking the kitchen stuff. Everything just sort of got thrown into the boxes after we surveyed the damage, so we could demolish the kitchen. 9 months of plastic cutlery and paper plates later... progress is wonderful. I swear I heard the hallelujah chorus when I unearthed the cutlery set at the bottom of one of the boxes!
As is usually the case when I’m in a great mood, we had some fun in the kitchen yesterday. Homemade, fresh cheese for breakfast. Yes!
A couple weeks after the tornado, we attended a cheese workshop at a local brewing supply store, which is where we learned this basic technique. It was a weird thing to spend our time on, at the time.. But we needed to just get away from it all. We socked the knowledge away til now, and yes - it was worth the wait!
This method takes less than an hour to do, start to finish. (About 20 minutes of “active” time), and doesn’t take much in the way of ingredients. You will need rennet and citric acid, which are available at specialty cooking stores, or home brewing / cheese making supply shops - and only cost a couple of dollars each.
Buy a fair amount of the citric acid - not only will you find this recipe becoming an easy "go-to", I'll be posting more recipes using citric acid. (For instance, Homemade Wine Slush Mix!)
I’ll be honest - I’d barely had my finished, still warm braid of cheese on the plate, before we ravenously tore into it. It was like a scene straight out of Jurassic Park or something - and I’m pretty sure at least one of us made raptor -like noises at each other while tearing away at our cheese with our bare hands.
Oh, and yes - the cheese was squeeky. SO good! You should definitely give this a try sometime!
Citric Acid
Citric acid is available from home brewing stores, can sometimes be found in canning sections of grocery stores, and is readily available on Amazon - you can buy some here!
A little citric acid goes a long way, so if you’re buying it specifically for this recipe, expect to have a lot left over.
Never fear, there are other recipes you can use it in, right here on the blog!
Homemade Jolly Rancher Candies, Homemade Wine Slush Mix, Fuzzy Peach Cocktail, and Homemade Beep Drink are all great ways to use your citric acid!
Also, if you're interested in gluten-free cooking and baking, you should definitely check out my gluten-free cookbooks: Beyond Flour: A Fresh Approach to Gluten Free Cooking & Baking, and the sequel... Beyond Flour 2. You can order them right here on my website, through Amazon, or through any major bookseller.
Cheese Recipes
Are you a wild cheese freak like us? We've some recipes for you!
Brie en Croute
Easy Cheese Souffle
Grilled Halloumi Salad with Peaches & Figs
Heart Shaped Beer Pretzels with Jalapeno Jack Dip
Hot Cheeseburger Dip
How to Make Fromage Fort
How to Make Proper Queso
Jalapeno Artichoke Cheese Dip
Paneer Burgers
Smoked Cheese Balls
Smoked Jalapeno Poppers
Southwest Fondue
The One Cheese Ring
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Before you chow down, be sure to take some pics of your handiwork! If you Instagram it, be sure to tag me - @CelebrationGenerationCA - or post it to My Facebook Page - so I can cheer you on!
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Homemade Fresh Mozzarella
Ingredients
- ¼ teaspoon Lipase Optional*
- ½-3/4 Cup Unchlorinated Water Divided
- 1 Gallon Whole Milk NOT "Ultra pasteurized" - and Fresher is Better
- 1 ½ teaspoon Citric Acid
- ¼ teaspoon Liquid Rennet Or ¼ Rennet Tablet, Crushed
- 1 teaspoon Cheese Salt Optional
Instructions
- If using lipase, dissolve it in ¼ cup water, allow to sit for 15 minutes.
- Pour milk into a large, very clean pan. Heat over medium, until it reaches 55F
- While the milk is heating, dissolve citric acid in ¼ cup of water, and rennet in another ¼ cup of water. Keep the two (or three, if using lipase!) solutions straight – label if you have to!
- Once cheese reaches 55F, stir in the citric acid solution. The milk will start to curdle a little.
- Add lipase – if using – and stir well. Continue to heat milk, stirring often.
- This is what the cheese will look like after a few minutes. Continue heating to 88F. When milk comes to 88F, add rennet solution and stir VERY well – be sure to use some up and down motions as well as “around”, to distribute the rennet!
- Continue to heat to 105F, stirring gently. The curds will separate from the whey.
- Between 100 and 105F, the liquid will no longer look milky – instead it will be clear and yellowish. When this happens, you’re ready for the next step!
- This is ready.
- Using a slotted spoon, carefully remove all of the curds from the whey, transferring it to a microwave safe bowl. Once all of the curd is transferred, press with a spoon to force out excess whey. Drain any whey visible in the bowl.
- Microwave the curd for about a minute on high. If you don’t have a high pain tolerance, clean rubber gloves will come in handy for this next step.
- GENTLY fold the curd over itself a few times, trying not to burn yourself. The idea is to distribute the heat, NOT to beat the life out of it.
- I got a little nuts with it, and went into “fondant making” mode… which is why mine turned out less than smooth. Whoops! It still tasted awesome!
- Microwave for another 30 seconds, drain whey, fold over a few more times. Repeat one more time, and add salt if you’re using it.
- By this time, the cheese should be hot enough to stretch. Stretch and fold a few times – as if you were stretching taffy – until the cheese is smooth and shiny.
- Once you’ve determined that either your cheese is smooth/shiny enough, or you’re just hungry and tired of burning your hands… do with it as you please. Pinch it into small balls, roll it in a log, or roll THREE logs and braid them, like we did.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
I'm constantly learning things from you that turn out to be way easier and quicker than I EVER imagined. Cheesemaking? Hell yes.
You mention lipase and you mention rennet. Are they the same thing? Only lipase is listed in the ingredients, while rennet is in the instructions.
Whoops, I did leave the rennet out of the ingredients list! Fixed!
I have to try this microwave method of doing mozzarella! It is so hard to find good mozzarella over here... maybe home making is the right choice!
This may be a silly question, but for unchlorinated water, do you use bottled distilled water? Or tap water run through a filter?
I used bottled water. For the little needed, it was quick and easy.... not sure about using a filter - I haven't tried!
Where do you find milk that is not pasteurized?!
It should be pasteurized, just not "ultra pasteurized"!
Where do I buy rennet or lipase?
Hi Jane,
Rennet or lipase can usually be purchased at homebrewing/winemaking supply stores, cheese making supply stores (though, there are less of those than there are homebrew shops!), or online.
As for soy milk - I don't think it works with this recipe. I can't see rennet working on the soy proteins the same way it does on the milk proteins - but I could be wrong!
Also can i use Soy milk?
Looks fabulous.... I tried making cheese for the first time and your tips really helped!
While shopping for the ingredients online I came across 2 kinds of rennet both for cheesemaking but one is Liquid animal rennet and the other is Liquid vegetable rennet which one should I use
Either one will work fine - I tend to use animal rennet, myself. Vegetable rennet is great for if you're making cheese for vegetarians.
Any suggestions on how to cook it w/o a microwave? I don't own one :). Thanks!
I'd keep the whey at a simmer, and heat it up in there.
Easy to follow recipe, results were amazing. It felt like such an accomplishment to eat cheese that I had made myself. The hardest part was finding a source of rennet local to me.