Probably, this product is in any home. Especially if there are children or elderly people in the family, those who care about their and their family's health, or who are trying to lose weight. But sometimes we, buying this product in a store and trusting it, do not think about what and how it is made. Meanwhile, the contents of the grocery packs and bags are highly questionable. And therefore, the desire of many to make cottage cheese at home is understandable. Because it is not only simple, but also healthy, and so delicious. And everyone also knows what it is made of and the curd was prepared using safe technology.

What products to make cottage cheese: rules for making homemade cottage cheese

People who are used to not denying themselves anything natural, striving to lead a healthy lifestyle, have come up with more than one way. After all, curd is prepared from different dairy products. This is either milk, or kefir, go yogurt, sour cream or even fermented baked milk.

IMPORTANT: If you want the cottage cheese to be tasty at home and retain all its usefulness, take ONLY FRESH milk or products from it and only from a trusted brand. Better yet, straight from the cow!

Homemade cottage cheese from curdled milk - a step-by-step recipe with a photo

But, whatever the base product, the rules for preparing any of them are about the same. The main thing in this process is the timely and correct separation of the whey. After all, excessive overheating will make the curd hard, and underheating will make it more difficult to separate the curd, and in general, it will be sour. So, let's get ready!

Ingredients

• 750 ml curdled milk

How to cook homemade cottage cheese correctly - my grandmother's recipe

Sour milk is fermented milk. I did it arbitrarily. I forgot about the milk bottle I started. It turned sour. I kept him warm for a day. I got yogurt. But it can be done in another way. Leave the milk in a sealed container in a dark place in the kitchen. Day is enough. Or put a tablespoon of sour cream on a liter of milk, and continue, as in my situation. But I got this beauty.

Step 1. Sour milk

Yes, the yogurt turned out to be notable, dense. As I became convinced later, the consistency is just perfect ... Now the yogurt should be gently transferred to a saucepan, where the cottage cheese will be prepared.

Step 2. Sour milk in a saucepan

I'll just warn you right away - you will need two pots. One is small, in which we already have yogurt, and the second is larger, so that the first fits into it. Pour water into the larger one (so that it does not reach the bottom of the smaller one).

IMPORTANT: You can do without a water bath, that is, put a saucepan with yogurt directly on the fire, reducing it as much as possible. But in this case, you need to carefully monitor the process, because the cottage cheese can turn out to be rubbery, that is, inedible.

Step 3. Steam bath serum

So, so that overheating does not turn out, which is real on direct fire, we put a small dish in a large one. Then we send her to the fire. Bring water to a boil. This will be a water bath. After a few minutes, you will see a yellowish serum begin to appear.

Step 4. Observe the separation of the serum

IMPORTANT: You must not allow the yogurt to boil!

But that is not all. It is important to wait for a certain moment. We need to increase the fire a little. Then, without leaving for a second and without taking your eyes off the curdled milk, wait until such curd clots appear. They will gradually sink to the bottom.

Step 5. Curd curd

Remove the pan from the heat. Let the whey cool. And then there are several ways. The first is to filter the curd through a thick towel or through a strainer.

Step 6. Filter through a sieve

But in order to get the desired mass, you still need to do some manipulations. Let's say you did with a strainer. Hold the cottage cheese in it for a longer time, and you can also press down with a spoon on top. And I did it with a strainer, and then threw everything on a towel to wring it out.

Step 7. Squeeze the whey

IMPORTANT: If, after the first attempt with a small amount of yogurt, you decide to make a larger portion, then this process will be facilitated by hanging a towel (gauze). Just keep it on until the serum stops separating.

And you will get such a beauty!

Step 8. The curd is ready

How to make yogurt curd

Kefir should only be fresh. And also the advice is this - take the one that is not liquid, but the one that is thicker, with a consistency that resembles my yogurt. Having poured a liter of kefir into an enamel bowl, we will send it to a water bath. Keep on low heat for at least 30 minutes. Cover with a lid, let it cool. And then the same algorithm - gauze or strainer. Or both.

A delicious recipe for making low-fat homemade cottage cheese

Yes, it happens. Someone is losing weight, someone is contraindicated in excess fat, someone's liver or pancreas does not allow such a luxury. Therefore, I advise you to buy non-farm milk - it has a high percentage of fat. And for low-fat curd, you also need low-fat milk. You can get 1% milk from the store, or if you get homemade milk from someone, ask them to make you skim milk. You can stand the milk and skim the cream several times.

Then you need to ferment the milk. But get ready for the fact that the process will take more than one day, as with yogurt. Therefore, in a liter of raw materials, put a couple of tablespoons of fat-free kefir. And then everything is the same as in the previous recipes. By the way, low-fat homemade cottage cheese will turn out to be not as loose as with ordinary milk, but everything useful will be preserved in it!

It is not at all difficult to cook cottage cheese at home. It is prepared from milk, store or farm, with a fat content of your choice. Also, cottage cheese can be prepared from ready-made kefir. For children, you can make cottage cheese from baby milk and kefir.

What is the advantage of homemade cottage cheese over production and why cook cottage cheese yourself, waste time on this, if you can just go in and buy, choosing cottage cheese products to your taste in the store? Everything is simple here: you do not add additives and preservatives that are unnecessary for our body. In addition, at home you can cook as much cottage cheese as you need at the moment. If your family has children, then, owning simple technology, you can always have fresh cottage cheese.

You can also make various dishes from homemade cottage cheese.

How to cook curd from curdled milk

Sour milk is the easiest fermented milk product to prepare. In order to get yogurt, you just need to take milk and put it in a warm place. To accelerate the formation of sour milk, you can add: 1 liter - 100 ml of kefir or 1 tablespoon of sour cream or yogurt.

After the milk turns into sour milk, you need to separate the curd mass from the whey. To do this, you need to drain the yogurt into a bag of several layers of gauze or other cloth, then hang it up. This will separate the curd from the whey, which will take about half a day.

To speed up the process of making curd from curdled milk, it must be warmed up. Do not bring the product to a boil or simmer! Then the mass should be cooled and discarded in a colander with gauze or other fabric cloth. Put oppression (press) to get drier cottage cheese. You can also hang it in a gauze or linen bag.

The longer the curd remains hanging or is under pressure, the more dense and dry it turns out.

How to make soda curd

It is very simple to prepare such cottage cheese at home. The curd prepared in this way has a low acidity and is especially suitable for dietary and baby food.

We will need:

• Milk - 2 liters,
• Lactic acid calcium - 3 tsp (12 g).

Preparation:

Lactic acid calcium is sold in the pharmacy in powder form. It must be dissolved in a small amount of water, for example, 3-4 tablespoons of water. Bring fresh milk to a boil, turn off the heat and add dissolved lactic acid calcium with constant stirring.

In this case, the milk is curdled. This mass must be cooled and filtered through cheesecloth or other cloth to separate the whey from the curd. Cottage cheese can be hung in order to make it better to stack, or put under oppression. From 2 liters of milk, you get 300-350 grams of cottage cheese.

How to cook cottage cheese at home

2 ways to make kefir cottage cheese

Warm way

Kefir should be placed in a warm place for faster whey separation. When the whey begins to separate, put the container with kefir in a water bath and heat it up for better and quicker separation of the whey from the curd mass. Then fold the mass into a gauze or cloth bag and hang in order for the excess serum to glass.

You can use a faster method, in which the curd is directly heated, for example, in a saucepan over low heat, until curd and whey are formed. This mass should not be brought to a boil.

Cold way

Place 1 liter of kefir in a bag or package in the freezer for 2-3 days, then take out and remove frozen kefir from the bag. Place it in a colander with cheesecloth and wait until the whey drains and a delicate and very tasty cottage cheese remains.

Types of cottage cheese: skyr, irimshik, hedgehogs

These are the old recipes of the world fast cooking of cottage cheese.

Skyr

Combine freshly prepared curdled milk in a 1: 1 ratio with fresh milk brought to a boil. For example, bring 1 liter of milk to a boil and pour in 1 liter of yogurt, leave the mixture on low heat for 3 minutes. As soon as the milk curd separates from the whey, remove from heat and discard the curd in a colander.

Irimshik

It is prepared in the same way as skyr, but you can boil a mixture of milk and yogurt for about 5 minutes, the proportion of yogurt and fresh milk is 1: 2.

Ezhegey

The proportions of curdled milk and fresh milk are 2: 1, prepared in the same way as skyr, but without boiling: curdled milk, getting into the milk, immediately separates the whey from the curd curd. After the introduction of curdled milk into the milk, turn off the fire, allow it to cool and discard the finished cottage cheese in a colander.

When it comes to homemade cottage cheese, there is a long row on the collective farm market with cans of sour cream, bottles of milk, fresh butter and large basins, saucepans, plastic containers with cottage cheese: oily with a cream shade, snow-white with small grains of grains, medium - milk abundance for every taste.

The same picture, but near the dairy showcase of the supermarket, for some reason, does not cause such an appetite, despite the colorful packaging, clear, geometric layout of goods and neat, smiling saleswomen. You take a pack of cottage cheese, and the parchment packaging is sticky! Or, no, not like that. You take in your hands a plastic jar with cottage cheese, and it says that the shelf life is 2 weeks, and this is not the most frightening version of the inscription. You return home with the firm belief that you are carrying a "pig in a poke" for dinner. A natural dairy product cannot be stored for more than 3 days. Of course, not everything is so terrible. It happens that you are lucky: both the manufacturer is conscientious, and the seller is interested in attracting buyers.

But in the market they will give you a try, and tell you about life and life, and, in the meantime, you can find out in which meadow the cow was grazing, from whose milk the curd was made, what it was fed with and when it was vaccinated. Here, this is a real choice, as they say, with taste and with sense. Good homemade cottage cheese is always snapped up. If you are late and it is over, it’s not scary. There is still milk left, and village women are always in a hurry to return home early - they have a large farm, a lot of work. Therefore, having bargained and buying 5-10 liters of milk, you will also benefit - they will definitely lose in price. We return home, and we begin to conjure, or rather - to create: it is this word that is etymologically tied to the word "curd".

Homemade curd cheese from curdled milk - preparation of raw materials

Raw material, in this case, is milk bought on the market. We do not consider options for making cottage cheese from milk bought in a store, since even natural whole milk, but in its original packaging, will not give the desired result. Under production conditions, milk is subject to mandatory pasteurization at a high temperature. As a result, low quality dry curd grain is obtained from such milk.

Home-made cottage cheese is different from industrial milk processing. Milk pasteurization occurs at temperatures from 630C (long-term processing) to 90C (instant pasteurization). Lactic acid bacteria die at 37-450C. That is, after warming up the milk, its fermentation in a natural way becomes impossible. In addition to the fact that during high-temperature processing, milk loses almost all valuable vitamins and amino acids, it loses the ability to coagulate, and it is this quality of the product that underlies the preparation of cottage cheese.

But what about the observance of sanitary standards, and how to cook curd from curdled milk at home in order to get a natural product and, at the same time, protect yourself from pathogenic microbes?

The answer to this question lies in the ability of lactic acid bacteria to produce lactic acid. Raw cow's milk contains 96% of harmful microorganisms and 4% of lactobacilli, but these four percent are enough to create an acidic environment and destroy pathogenic microorganisms.

If it is so easy to get rid of harmful organisms, then why is milk subject to pasteurization in factories? Everything is simple. Milk is brought to dairies in tons, it is collected on farms and in private households, pouring everything together into large tanks. With such volumes, it is difficult to keep track of the purity of raw materials, especially since milk is a perishable product and must be brought for processing quickly. The housewife buys milk from one vendor. It is no coincidence that at the beginning of the article, personal communication with the seller in the market was mentioned in such detail.

What else is the process of preparing milk and how to cook curd from curdled milk at home?

Depending on the fat content in milk, cottage cheese can also be of different fat content. Whole homemade milk can contain up to 30% fat. Therefore, if you want the cottage cheese to be dietary (low-fat) or semi-fat, then you need to skim the cream. Let the milk settle in a glass bottle to allow the greasy particles to float to the surface. It is convenient to skim the cream at home in the following way: a plastic tube is inserted into the bottle with the settled milk (a tube from a medical system for drip injection is suitable). The tube should touch the bottom. Lower the other end into another container, located at a level lower than the bottle. Transfer the milk to another container until only the fatty part remains in the bottle. You can make sour cream from the cream, and leave the drained skim milk in a saucepan for fermentation and further preparation of cottage cheese.

This completes the preparation of milk for making homemade cottage cheese from curdled milk. We turn to the question of the main technological points of obtaining cottage cheese.

Homemade curd cheese from curdled milk - fermentation of milk

Milk will turn sour by itself if you put the container in a warm place for several hours. Then what are we talking about? That it is possible, for example, to speed up this process.

In fresh milk to obtain curdled milk (without this product, cottage cheese cannot be obtained in any way) is added for fermentation:

Lemon juice or citric acid solution - one tablespoon per liter of warm (25-370C) milk;

Fermented milk products - sour cream, kefir, ready-made yogurt, natural yogurt. At the same time, milk is also pre-heated in order to create the most favorable conditions for the life of lactic acid bacteria;

Special starter cultures - they can be purchased at a pharmacy or specialized points of sale (acidophilus, acedin-pepsin, "Lactona" and others). They are added to milk according to the attached instructions for use.

The yogurt is ready, but that's half the battle. Let's move on to the main goal - getting cottage cheese out of it.

Homemade curd cheese from curdled milk - the main technological points

First you need to know that milk is about 80% water, and only 20% is solids. Hence - from a liter of milk you can get no more than 200 g of cottage cheese, and if the milk is skimmed, then the weight of the finished product decreases in proportion to the proportion of fat in the milk. As you know, fat also consists of water and retains moisture, which means that cottage cheese from skim milk will turn out to be dry, with a lower content of whey. As they say, it's a matter of taste, but if you need to get fat-free cottage cheese with a sufficient degree of moisture, then you need to strictly observe the technological points.

The fermented milk must be warmed up, but not overheated, so that the milk protein does not curl up to a rubbery consistency. While heating the curdled milk, you need to constantly stir the mass to ensure uniform heating. The temperature of heating at home is rarely measured with a thermometer, but approximately the separation of milk protein begins at 50C. At this time, the solid mass begins to rise to the surface of the pan. In order not to overdry the curd, turn off the stove and cool the whey together with the formed curd to 20-250C. Then you can start pressing. It is very convenient for this purpose to line a colander with gauze installed above the container for draining the whey. Pour the contents of the preheated saucepan through a colander. Part of the whey will drain immediately, easily separating from the curd. The whey remaining in the almost finished cottage cheese is separated by pressing, controlling the moisture content of the finished product at your discretion. To do this, you need to tie the ends of the lined gauze and hang the curd over the dishes for further drainage of the liquid. In the same way, but with the use of oppression, rennet cheese is obtained: the curd tied in a gauze napkin is placed under oppression to obtain pressed curd.

This is the easiest way to get homemade cottage cheese from yogurt, known to mankind for more than one hundred, and maybe even a thousand years. Well, of course, I want, as always, variety. Then we attach more complex, but interesting options to the main recipe.

Recipe 1. Curd mass, fruit

Composition:

• Forest berries (assorted) 300 g
• Low-fat cottage cheese 700 g
• Fructose 250 g
• Water 100 ml

Cooking method:

Cover strawberries, raspberries or other berries of your choice with fructose and wait for the juice to separate. Mash them, add water and boil for 5-10 minutes. After cooling the fruit mass, rub it through a sieve to remove grains and skins. Beat the curd with a blender, gradually pouring in the fruit syrup.

Recipe 2. Cheese, vanilla with raisins - a favorite taste of childhood

Composition:

• Cream
• Cottage cheese
• Sugar
• Vanillin, crystalline
• Raisins, light

Preparation:

If the cottage cheese is greasy and moist, then it is not necessary to add cream. Moisten overdried curd grains with cream (10-15%). We choose the proportions at our discretion. We combine all the components in a blender, and add the raisins at the end, to the whipped and fluffy curd mass, and mix it thoroughly.

Recipe 3. Curd snack, spicy

Composition:

• Cherry 10 pieces
• Cottage cheese 200 g
• Garlic 10 g
• Basil, red
• Parsley
• Ground hot pepper

Preparation:

Wash the tomatoes, cut off the part with the stalk. You can do it nicely with a zigzag line. Core with seeds with a spoon. Finely chop the herbs, grate the garlic on the finest grater. Put cottage cheese in a blender bowl (it is better to use fatty one), add prepared herbs and spices. Mix into a paste and stuff the tomatoes. Put hats with ponytails on top of the stuffed vegetables.

• Too sour or too dry curd can be corrected. Pour fresh whole milk into a saucepan and heat it to 35-400C. Put the cottage cheese that needs improvement in the warmed milk and leave for 10-12 hours. Then strain through cheesecloth.
• For long-term storage, the curd can be frozen, but first place it in portions in containers and seal it tightly. Use the curd immediately after defrosting. Re-freezing it will turn it into useless biomass.
• For storage, you can add salt to the curd. This method of storing cottage cheese was used by our ancestors. If you then need to prepare a dish of sweet cottage cheese, then it can be washed with water and squeezed.

In simple terms, to get homemade cottage cheese, it is enough to take purchased kefir or milk, and then process it with high or low temperatures. Of course, the procedure is performed not only by heating, but also by freezing. Depending on the technology chosen, the taste of the finished product differs. Only one thing is clear - in the end you will get a completely natural cottage cheese, which surpasses the purchased formulations in terms of its useful qualities. Let's consider the most delicious recipes, highlight the main aspects.

Important!
Cooking cottage cheese at home is a fairly easy process.

A negative feature is that the final product has a limited shelf life. If possible, eat it immediately after preparation or within the next 24 hours.

If, out of inexperience, you have made too much cottage cheese, make cheese cakes, dumplings, casseroles or pie based on it.

As mentioned above, cottage cheese can be made from kefir or milk and sour cream. The only thing you need to know is that the milk will have to be turned into yogurt (homemade kefir).

Kefir cottage cheese: a classic recipe

For cooking you will need: kefir - 1.2 liters.

1. Prepare the necessary materials and tools in advance. You will need a piece of gauze cloth about 30 * 30 cm in size, a sieve or colander, a pastry chef's thermometer, a wooden spatula, matryoshka pots of different diameters.
2. First you need to prepare a steam bath. To do this, take a large saucepan, pour water into it so that the liquid reaches the middle. Place the saucepan on the stove, set to medium heat, bring to a boil.
3. Pour kefir into the second (small) container. Place the crockery in the first pan so that it rests on the handles. The bottom of the small bowl should be immersed in boiling water. After you put the container with kefir in the liquid, reduce the heat to a minimum.
4. Simmer kefir over low heat until curdled. Move the curds of the resulting mass to the walls of the dishes so that the composition warms up evenly. After a quarter of an hour, the temperature regime of the mixture will reach 55-65 degrees.
5. To correctly estimate the temperature, insert a culinary thermometer deep into the composition, evaluate the result. At 60 degrees, turn off the burner, remove the mixture from the heat, remove the container with kefir in a cool, dark place for 30-45 minutes.
6. Next, place the cheesecloth folded in 2-3 layers in the cavity of a colander or sieve, place a container under the whey, pour the milk mass into the filter. Tie the fabric around the edges, creating a kind of bag, wring it out.
7. Place the prepared mass in a microwave container or deep bowl. In cases where the amount of cottage cheese is large enough, compress the composition with a heavy bottle.

Kefir cottage cheese: cooking in a jar

For cooking you will need: yogurt or kefir - 1.3 liters.

1. Prepare all the tools and materials you will need for the job. This includes a large saucepan, a 2 to 3 liter glass jar, a cotton towel or board, a colander or kitchen strainer, and cheesecloth.
2. Wash and sterilize the jar. To do this, place it in the oven, set the temperature to 45 degrees, every 5 minutes, increase the power by 20 degrees until you reach 110. After that, remove the container with a mitten and cool.
3. Pour the kefir into a jar. Lay a towel or cutting board on the bottom of the pan, put a container with yogurt inside so that it is located exactly in the center. Pour running water into the cavity, it should cover 2/3 of the container with kefir.
4. Turn the hotplate to the lowest setting. Simmer the mixture until it curdles. As a result, you will get a composition that visually separates into curd and whey. At this point, take a sieve, cover it with two layers of gauze.
5. Pour the mixture into a filter, strain the whey, leave the cottage cheese. Connect the edges of the gauze to make a bag, tie, cool. Place the curd in a food container, refrigerate.

Frozen kefir curd

For cooking you will need: kefir (fat content from 3.2%) - 1 liter.

1. To prepare cottage cheese from kefir, you will need to prepare a sieve, cheesecloth, and a food container. At the same time, place a bag of purchased kefir in the freezer and freeze it.
2. When the composition is completely frozen, take out the bag, cut off the top of the pack with scissors. Now make an incision on the side, take out the frozen kefir.
3. Wrap the composition in one layer of cheesecloth, place it in a sieve or colander to melt the mass. Be sure to place a deep bowl under the container, the liquid will flow down.
4. It is important that the composition melts at room temperature. However, if it's too hot in the apartment, place the bowl of ice block in a cool place.
5. After about 6 hours, the milk mass will completely melt. The whey will drain down, leaving only cottage cheese. When this happens, squeeze it out with cheesecloth, transfer to a food container.

• sour cream with a fat content of 20% - 40 gr.
• milk - 1.7 l.

1. Sterilize the glass jar. To do this, put it in a saucepan, fill both containers with water, simmer over medium heat for about 25 minutes. After that, leave the container to dry with the neck down, then wipe with paper towels to completely eliminate moisture.
2. Pour milk into a sterile container, add sour cream, stir the composition until smooth. Cover the neck with a bandage or gauze, put in a warm place for 10 hours. After the due date, you will get yogurt, so you can safely start preparing cottage cheese.
3. Take 2 pans (large and small). In the first, pour running water, filling the dishes exactly halfway. In the second - the obtained yogurt. Place the small saucepan inside the large one so that it rests on the handles and is slightly submerged in the water.
4. Put both containers on the stove, turn on the device over low heat, start simmering the mixture. The curdled milk will begin to curl up into cottage cheese, you need to move it with a wooden spatula to the edges of the pan.
5. When all the kefir is processed, put 2 layers of gauze in a colander, pour cottage cheese there. Tie the fabric in a knot to form a pouch. Wring out, send the composition to the container.

Kefir cottage cheese in a slow cooker

For cooking you will need: kefir (fat content 3.2%) - 2 liters.

1. Sterilize the multi-bowl by pouring boiling water over it. Dry with a cotton towel.
2. Pour kefir into the cavity of the multicooker, set the "Heating" mode and the temperature 75-85 degrees (at your discretion).
3. The duration of heating the composition is 45 minutes, after this period the multicooker can be turned off.
4. Prepare a filter from a colander covered with a gauze cloth. Pour the mixture into it, squeeze the cottage cheese and leave to cool completely.
5. Transfer the mass to a food container, press with your hands, store in the refrigerator for no longer than 36 hours. In the same way, yogurt is prepared from yogurt.

Kefir cottage cheese in the microwave

For cooking you will need: kefir with maximum fat content - 1.6 liters.

1. To prepare cottage cheese according to this recipe, absolutely any microwave oven is suitable, which heats food at a temperature not exceeding 80 degrees. You can select Defrost, Rapid Defrost or any program that meets your requirements.
2. To properly prepare the product, pour the kefir into a microwave container or glass jar. Leave for half an hour at 80 degrees, stir the mass periodically.
3. In the process of processing, kefir (can be replaced with yogurt) is divided into cottage cheese and whey. Pause the device every 10 minutes, remove the formed curd to the walls of the container.
4. When the product is ready, take a kitchen sieve, spread cheesecloth in 2 rows, pour in the whey and cottage cheese. Twist a bag out of the gauze to squeeze out the moisture. Send the final product into a container, compress it in a convenient way.

It is not difficult to make yogurt curd at home if you have sufficient knowledge of the available technologies. Use a classic recipe, consider a method using a steam bath or glass jar. Try to make cottage cheese from frozen kefir; to save time, choose a recipe for a microwave or multicooker.

Video: recipe for making delicious cottage cheese