How to make cottage cheese at home?
Homemade cottage cheese is much healthier than store cheese. The true composition of the latter often remains a mystery to the consumer. Why feed your children is unclear what, when you can give your child a delicious homemade curd, of which you are sure. Not sure how to make cottage cheese yourself at home? Even a novice housewife can do this, nothing complicated, but as a result, you will receive not only a useful product, but also take care of the health of your family.
There are a lot of recipes for making cottage cheese at home. You just have to choose the one that suits you the most, there is a classic, grandmother's version, or you can make it in a multicooker. Only proven recipes and excellent results.

Homemade cottage cheese from milk - a classic recipe

According to this recipe, grandmothers made cottage cheese at home, and it will remain relevant for a long time. All that is required for cooking is good quality milk, ideally rustic. If it is not possible to buy a farm one, use one that has a shelf life of several days.
Ingredients:
Milk - 3 l
Preparation:

The cooking process according to this recipe takes several days. Place the can of milk in a warm place to turn it into curdled milk. If the room is warm, 2 days will be enough, cooler - the process will take 3-4 days.
If you have country milk, cream will form on its surface. They can be removed or left, then the fat content of the curd will be higher. Curdled milk from natural milk is obtained as a single mass, whereas when using store-bought milk, curdled milk is collected from the top, and whey remains at the bottom.
Gently pour the curdled milk into a saucepan and put on the stove, make the heat slow, stir occasionally. After 15-20 minutes, the serum will begin to actively separate.
Prepare a colander in advance, put it on a saucepan and cover with gauze. Pour the contents of the pot into a colander, tie the cheesecloth and let the liquid drain well. The curd is ready.
If you like wetter cottage cheese, leave it in gauze for 3-4 hours, you need a dry one, “forget” about it all night. Whey is great for making pancakes, pancakes, or breads.
This cottage cheese can be given to the child without fear, and if you are going to introduce it into the complementary foods for the baby, do not make the cottage cheese too fat. It will turn out great and.
The following recipe is very interesting and simple, and you will learn how to make cottage cheese from kefir.

Frozen kefir curd

Here, in general, no effort is required to prepare it. The recipe is simple and easy. All you need is to buy a bag of kefir (in soft packaging) and put it in the freezer overnight.
Next, take the kefir out of the freezer, cut and discard the packaging and transfer the kefir to a colander covered with gauze. Don't forget to place a saucepan underneath. The kefir melted and everything is ready. You don't need to wring out anything. It turns out very tasty and tender cottage cheese. If you add fruit and give it to the child, he will not distinguish it from the store's curd.
Such curd should not be cooked! It is very moist and tender, so do not use it for cheese cakes and casseroles. It's best to just eat it for dessert, add honey or fresh berries to it, or use it to make a cream.

Sourdough cottage cheese

According to this recipe, cottage cheese is prepared much faster than the classic one, but in addition to milk, you will need a special vivo starter culture.
If you use country milk, you must first boil it and bring it to a temperature of 40 C. Pasteurized milk can be simply heated to the required temperature.

Ingredients:
Milk - 2.5 -3 l
Vivo starter culture - 1 pc.
Preparation:
Prepare milk depending on what kind of milk you have: store milk or natural farm milk. Take one bottle of starter culture, pour some milk into it and shake it. Add sourdough to warm milk and mix well. Cover the pot with a lid and set aside for 6-8 hours.
During this time, the milk will turn into yogurt. Place a saucepan with milk on the stove and over medium heat, stirring occasionally, keep for 20 minutes. You will see for yourself how the whey begins to separate from the curd mass. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.
Throw the mass in a colander and leave for a while to glass the whey. The cottage cheese turns out to be very tender and tasty.
If you have a slow cooker, the following recipe is for you.

Cottage cheese in a slow cooker

Making cottage cheese according to this recipe is easy and simply does not require much effort.
Important! Curd is prepared using sour cream, so a natural product is required. Carefully read the composition, the correct sour cream is prepared only from cream, there should not be any vegetable fats. Take low-quality sour cream, just spoil all the products.
Ingredients:
Milk - 2 l
Sour cream - 100 gr.
Preparation:

Pour warm milk into a multicooker bowl, add sour cream and mix well. Turn on the Yogurt program for 7 hours. If your multicooker does not have such a function, the Multipovar program is also suitable. Set the temperature to 38 ° C and the time to 7 hours.
After the specified time has elapsed, stir the milk, turn on the "Multi-cook" program for 40 minutes, t - 95 ° C.
Drain the curd in a colander in the usual way. The longer the whey drains from it, the drier it will be. If you don't know how long you will need, try the cottage cheese periodically. It usually takes 1 to 12 hours. It all depends on which one you like more: slightly wet or drier. He is not afraid of heat treatment, so the baked goods from him are excellent. Stir in the berries and a tasty and healthy treat for your child is ready. An excellent recipe - making cottage cheese is very simple, and besides, constant monitoring is not needed.

Cottage cheese made from milk and lemon juice

A very fast way- cooking healthy cottage cheese at home. Take any milk, in this recipe it does not matter. The cottage cheese prepared according to this recipe turns out to be very tasty, but it is better not to use it for baking. Make light and airy desserts from it.
Ingredients:
Milk - 1 l
Juice of half a lemon
Preparation:

Squeeze the juice out of the lemon before cooking. Place the saucepan with milk on the stove. Heat it well over low heat. As soon as signs of simmering appear, pour in the lemon juice, stir, and remove from heat. You will see how the milk curdles instantly and the whey is separated immediately.
Drain the mixture in a colander and let the whey drain out. Literally after 30 minutes, you can eat the curd. This express recipe will come in handy when you want cottage cheese here and now. Despite the fact that it is prepared literally in a matter of minutes, this does not affect the taste in any way.
No less delicious cottage cheese can be made according to the following recipe.

Cottage cheese from milk and kefir

Another quick recipe. For its preparation, the cheapest milk and the same cheap kefir in soft packages are suitable. It is prepared quickly and simply by analogy with the previous recipe.
Ingredients:
Milk - 2 l
Kefir - 1 l
Preparation:
Pour milk into a saucepan and place on the stove over low heat. You do not need to boil milk, as soon as you see that it starts to boil, pour in kefir. Stir and remove from heat.
When the milk has cooled to room temperature, drain it in a colander. Allow time to glass the serum. After about an hour, the cottage cheese is ready and you can eat it. If you plan to make cheese cakes from it, leave in a colander a little longer for about two hours.
The next option for making cottage cheese at home is not exactly a recipe, but the result is excellent.

Curd from sour milk

This is not a recipe, but rather a food rescue. Let's say you forgot about milk or bought a lot and did not have time to use it, and it sour. Why throw it out when you can make a delicious and healthy curd. Indeed, in fact, milk for cottage cheese should curl up, turn sour, as with the classic recipe, and here almost everything is ready. There is very little effort left to do.
Ingredients:
Milk. How much. Of course, the more, the better.
Preparation:

Pour the sour milk into a saucepan and place on the stove. Make the fire slow, do not forget to stir periodically. As soon as the milk starts to warm up, the whey begins to separate immediately. It will be enough to hold it on the stove for 15-20 minutes. It is not necessary to bring to a boil.
Remove the pan from the stove, put it in a colander, and let the whey drain out.
The taste of the curd will depend on how long you have sour milk. If you feel that there is sourness in the finished product, it is better not to give it to the child, but use it for baking. Such curd perfectly tolerates heat treatment.

Helpful hints:
do not heat milk in an enamel pan, it may burn and the taste of curd will deteriorate;
to get an excellent result, choose natural country milk, if this is not possible, buy with a short shelf life;
Whichever recipe you choose, do not boil the milk, otherwise the cottage cheese will turn out to be tough and tasteless.

We offer to see:

How to make homemade cheese

For baking Easter cakes and cottage cheese, you need cottage cheese, you want it to be of high quality, without chemical additives and fillers.

Therefore, the best option would be to cook cottage cheese at home, quickly, tasty and healthy. Homemade cottage cheese can be made from milk, yogurt, yogurt, milk and sour cream, milk and kefir. You can also use homemade cottage cheese, in, for dumplings, casseroles, cheese cakes and breakfast.

We will cook cottage cheese according to the following recipes:

Homemade cottage cheese from yogurt and sour cream

We need:% fat content of any food

• 1 kg of yogurt
• 500 g sour cream
• 500 g milk

Preparation:

1.In a saucepan with a thick bottom, put all the ingredients, mix and put on low heat. Bring to a boil, but do not boil, turn off and leave to cool.

2. Prepare another container to fit the colander, put cheesecloth on it in several layers, so that the edges hang down.

3. Transfer the curd mass to a colander, collect it in a bag and let the whey drain for 1 hour. Can be looped out of gauze and hung over a bowl.

Important: It must be taken into account that the more time the moisture drains from the cottage cheese, the drier it will be.

Delicate curd made from milk and kefir two options

1st option

Delicate, soft curd for children, soufflé making.

We need:

• 3.5 liters of fresh milk 2-3.5% fat
• 0.5 l of kefir
• 1 pc lemon, juice

Preparation:

1.Pour the milk into a saucepan and bring to a boil.

2. Mix kefir with lemon juice from 1 lemon, mix and pour into milk and heat again to a boil, but do not boil. Let stand for 10 minutes and transfer to a colander with gauze,

leave for 10 minutes, and spread with cheesecloth.

Serum can be used for pies and other baked goods, and it can also be drunk, it is very useful.

2nd option

This curd mass turns out to be very soft and tender, well suited for children.

We need:

• 2 liters of fresh homemade milk
• 1 liter of kefir

Preparation:

1. Put milk on fire and boil. Pour kefir into boiling milk, stir and turn off the heat, cover with a lid. Let stand for 20 minutes, until the cheese curd separates from the curd mass.

2. Prepare a container with a colander, pour the resulting mass and let the moisture drain, 2 hours.

Cottage cheese can be stored in glassware, in the refrigerator for 3-4 days.

Curd from curdled milk

We need:

• 3.5 l fresh milk

Preparation:

1. Put milk for 2 days in a warm place for souring. The whey must separate from the curd mass.

2. Sour milk is transferred to the fire and heated over low heat to 80 degrees. In order for the mass to warm up, you need to wiggle it a little with a spatula.

3. Prepare a bowl, colander and cheesecloth, 2 layers. Pour the mass into a colander and let it drain a little, stirring with a spoon. We collect the ends of the gauze, tie it crosswise and hang it by tying it to the handle of the kitchen furniture (as an example), substituting a bowl for draining the whey. Leave it for 5 hours until the moisture stops flowing.

You can store it in the refrigerator, under the lid, in a glass container for up to 1 week.

Homemade yogurt cottage cheese

We need:

• 2 kg of yogurt with a fat content of 2%. From this amount of yogurt, 900 g of cottage cheese and 1 liter of whey are obtained.

Preparation:

1.Pour the yogurt into a saucepan and put on a very low heat, cover and keep for 20-25 minutes.

Then mix and heat for another 1.5 hours.

2. Prepare dishes, a colander, cheesecloth, in several layers. Pour the heated yogurt into a colander

and hang for 1 hour or overnight.

Quick tender cottage cheese made from milk, sour cream and lemon juice

We need:

1st way:

• 3 liters of fresh homemade milk
• 1 tbsp. sour cream 15%
• 70 ml lemon juice

Preparation:

1. Put the milk to warm up until well warm (50 degrees).

2. Squeeze the juice from the lemon.

3. Mix milk with sour cream and add lemon juice, mix. Put on fire again and stir constantly. We remove the fire a little.

4. If we want to get a delicate product, then as soon as the serum begins to separate, remove from heat. If we need a coarser grainy cottage cheese, we continue to boil further until it boils. Boil for 5 minutes over low heat. Cool slightly and discard through cheesecloth in a colander. The curd is ready when the whey stops producing.

2nd way:

We need:

• 1 liter of milk
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp cream 20 -33%, optional

Preparation:

1.Salt the milk and heat. Bring to a boil, but do not boil.

2. Remove from heat and put lemon juice, stir. Stirring occasionally, stand for 5-7 minutes. At this stage, if desired, you can add cream to increase the fat content of the curd.

3. Put a colander in a bowl, cover with 2-layer gauze and transfer the curd mass. We collect gauze in a bag. Pour the excess whey into another dish, you can use it further, and leave the cottage cheese to strain for 45 - 60 minutes.

Bon Appetit!

Health 03.10.2014

Dear readers, today we will talk about how to cook cottage cheese at home. Probably, in every family, almost a day does not go without this product. And we eat the cottage cheese itself, and prepare different dishes from it. Including, probably loved by all, syrniki. But let's ask ourselves the question: "The curd that we buy in the store, is it good for us?" I think everyone will agree, homemade cottage cheese and purchased cottage cheese cannot be compared in quality, right? And if someone has small children, then the issue is not discussed at all. I think every mom will definitely find the time and prepare homemade cottage cheese for her children. There is no chemistry in it, our love is invested in the process of making cottage cheese, so today I propose to talk in more detail about how you can cook cottage cheese yourself at home.

For the Slavic peoples, cottage cheese has long occupied one of the main places in the diet, they ate it almost every day, knowing about its benefits for the body. And there was a lot of milk, and since there was nowhere to store it, it fermented quickly, so curd was made from curdled milk. Once upon a time in Russia, cottage cheese was called cheese, and all dishes made from it were called cheese, so the name of all of us beloved cheesecakes came to us from ancient times.

In those days, homemade hard cheese was also made in peasant farms, it was made from pressed cottage cheese, which was placed in a hot oven, again sent under the press, and again in the oven, and this was done several times. As a result, the cottage cheese turned into a dry dense mass, which was stored for a very long time, literally helping out many families in long cold winters.

Cottage cheese can be called a perfect food product, in which all the useful properties of milk are concentrated, and especially if the cottage cheese is homemade, cooked at home.

How to cook cottage cheese at home

When we cook cottage cheese ourselves, we are sure of its quality, and the taste of homemade cottage cheese is unusually pleasant, and it is not difficult to cook it. There are several ways, you can make cottage cheese from milk, or you can also from kefir, but there are certain general rules, without which high-quality cottage cheese will not work.

It is very important to separate the whey in time when heating the curdled milk, if it is overheated, the curd will turn out hard, it will crumble, and if the fermented milk is not heated enough, the whey will not separate well and the curd will turn out sour.

Do not worry if the first time you do something wrong, skills, as always, come with experience, over time this process will seem very simple to you.

For any recipe, start with 1 liter of milk and try it out. As I already said, it is important to remove the cottage cheese from the stove in time so that it turns out to be especially tender, and this can only be achieved in practice. The amount of cottage cheese is difficult to predict, it depends on the fat content and quality of the milk.

Homemade cottage cheese from milk. Recipe. Photo

Pour a liter of raw fresh milk into a saucepan, close the lid and put in a dark place, at normal room temperature the milk turns sour in about a day.

Pour the milk into a saucepan and put it under the lid in a dark place until it sours

Next, it is best to use a water bath, placing the saucepan with sour milk in another, large saucepan, so it is easier to control the process of separating the whey. But sometimes I put a saucepan with curdled milk directly on the stove, substituting a special metal stand under it, reduce the heat to the minimum and do not move away from the stove so as not to overheat.

We put a saucepan with yogurt in a water bath.

Watch when the curdled milk moves away from the edges of the pan, yellowish whey appears, and characteristic curd curds appear, it takes about 25-30 minutes, then remove the pan from the stove and leave to cool.

We keep on fire until curd clots appear and the whey is completely separated (it took me 35 minutes)

Throw the cooled cottage cheese in a colander, but better on a clean gauze napkin, the corners of which tie and hang so that the whey drains. The cottage cheese will turn out to be very tasty!

Pour the contents into a colander, squeeze out a little.

This is how the curd turned out.

And this was the serum.

The most delicious and healthy cottage cheese is obtained from raw milk, but when I do not have the opportunity to buy farm milk, I prepare cottage cheese from pasteurized, it turns out an excellent product that is much tastier than the purchased one.

Cooking cottage cheese at home from kefir

To prepare cottage cheese, take a liter of kefir, it is desirable that the kefir is fresh, for a better separation of the whey, you can add a spoonful of sugar syrup, but this is not necessary.

Put the kefir in an enamel bowl in a water bath and heat it over low heat for about half an hour, then leave it under the lid to cool. During this time, the cottage cheese will finally separate from the whey, and we pour it all back onto a sieve or cheesecloth and get a delicate nutritious product.

Cottage cheese at home. Video

Whoever does not quite understand the process of making yogurt cottage cheese, I invite you to watch the video.

Making low-fat homemade cottage cheese

As a rule, farm milk is quite fatty, and cottage cheese is also obtained from it with a high fat content, this must be taken into account if, for any reason, a low fat diet is recommended to you.

Low-fat cottage cheese can also be made at home, but you need low-fat milk to make it. There is pasteurized one percent milk on sale, so you need to make low-fat cottage cheese from it.

Such milk is fermented much longer and to speed up the process you just need to add two tablespoons of kefir to a liter of milk. For the rest, we do everything in the same way as with ordinary milk, the cottage cheese will turn out to be not so loose, but tasty and containing all the useful substances.

Low-fat cottage cheese is good for everyone who has problems with being overweight, who have problems with the liver, pancreas, so as not to overload them.

How long can homemade cottage cheese be stored?

You can store such cottage cheese for 3 days in the refrigerator. Now imagine how much more in store cottage cheese is, if it has a shelf life of 2-3 weeks, or even more. All this is chemistry. Everyone decides whether to buy such cottage cheese or still cook cottage cheese at home.

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I don't know about you, but in our supermarkets it has become quite problematic to buy real cottage cheese, mainly a cottage cheese product is sold. Even if it is written that cottage cheese, it takes a doubt whether it is good ... Since this is a fairly popular product in our family, I wondered how to make cottage cheese at home.
I recently talked about this useful product and its beneficial effects on our body, if you missed it, read it. And, of course, our body will only benefit from good cottage cheese.

There were quite a few ways to make homemade cottage cheese, I have already tried a couple of recipes, so I will share my experience and tell you about other methods so that you would choose the one that you like best.

Whichever way you make homemade cottage cheese, there are general tips that it is better to take into account in order to do everything right, and the cottage cheese turned out to be tasty and tender.

• If you have never made homemade cottage cheese, then you should not start with large volumes, since it may not work the first time, a certain skill is still needed.
• I advise you to keep the process of preparing cottage cheese under control and not leave the stove, since excessive heat treatment will make the cottage cheese hard and dry, and if it is insufficient, whey will not separate well. A sign that you need to remove from the heat is the appearance of yellowish whey and characteristic curd curds. There is and cannot be a clear recipe where the cooking time is indicated, since much depends on the degree of heating and on the quality of the original product. Having done it several times, you yourself will already understand how to do it better, come with experience.
• To make cottage cheese, you can use both homemade or farm milk, and store milk. If you make from a store, then buy with the shortest shelf life and pasteurized, not sterilized. From one liter of pasteurized milk, you can get about 200 gr. cottage cheese, from whole milk a little more than 220 - 250, depending on the fat content.
• It should also be borne in mind that the fat content of farm milk is quite high. If for some reason you need low-fat cottage cheese, then buy milk with low fat content or skim the cream from full-fat milk.
• When you separate the whey from the cottage cheese, it is important not to overexpose during the pressing process - the more moisture leaves, the drier the cottage cheese will be. Although sometimes you need drier cottage cheese if you will make cheese cakes or other pastries from it. So adjust the time yourself, if you need soft and moist cottage cheese, it is enough to hold it for 30 - 40 minutes, for drier cottage cheese you need 2 - 3 hours.
• The shelf life of homemade cottage cheese is 3 - 4 days. If there is a need to store it for a longer period, then the cottage cheese can be frozen by putting it in a bag or plastic container. After defrosting, it will be just as tasty and healthy, but re-freezing will make it an already useless product.

I hope the advice did not scare you and you still try to make cottage cheese at home. Choose the best recipe and go.

Milk cottage cheese at home

I tried this recipe first because some of the milk I bought turned sour. At first I wanted to put it into baking - it turns out good with sour milk, but then I remembered that I wanted to try to make cottage cheese from yogurt. I had farm milk and I knew for sure that the yogurt would be of high quality.

Store-bought milk is not always naturally fermented as it should.

Ingredients:

• in this way he is alone - milk

Homemade cottage cheese recipe from milk:

1. She poured the milk into a jar and covered it with a napkin. For the preparation of curdled milk, it is better to use a glass jar or earthenware, since metal dishes can affect the quality of the curdled milk and make it not very tasty. It should not be covered with a lid, but with a cotton cloth, which allows air to pass through, and speeds up the fermentation process.
2. I put it in a warm place and about a day later, curdled milk was obtained from the milk. But this process can take longer, it all depends on the temperature in the room. Another tip - do not put a can of milk in direct sunlight - it will turn sour, of course, faster, but it can deteriorate and turn green.
3. There were advice to do it in a water bath or over low heat. I chose the second option. She put a saucepan of sour milk on the stove. As soon as the milk began to curdle and the whey separated, I turned off the heat.
4. When the milk cooled down, I poured it through a colander, after covering it with gauze. I did not follow the advice very much, as they said that it was necessary to hang a gauze bag over the container so that excess liquid would drain. I needed soft and tender cottage cheese for food, not for baking, so I left the cottage cheese in a colander in gauze and as soon as the excess liquid was glass, I put the cottage cheese in a bowl.

Homemade cottage cheese from milk, or rather from yogurt, turned out delicious, but I didn't really like waiting a day or more, I decided to find another recipe. Although for faster fermentation, it is recommended to put sour cream (1 tbsp. L. Per liter of milk) or a piece of stale rye bread in milk, as well as there are ready-made sourdoughs that are sold at the pharmacy. In this case, the milk can become sour milk overnight. But you still have to wait. I found a quicker recipe and liked it very much.

How to quickly make cottage cheese at home

I will offer you two recipes for instant cottage cheese - from milk and kefir, and also from milk and lemon. For the preparation of cottage cheese in these ways, both farm milk and store milk are suitable. But what the cottage cheese tastes like, I can only say about the recipe with kefir - tender and tasty, and I used store milk. I haven't tried it with lemon yet.

Cottage cheese from milk and kefir

Ingredients:

• milk - 1 liter
• kefir - 0.5 liters
• salt - 0.5 tsp.

How to make cottage cheese from milk and kefir correctly:

Since milk is brought to a boil in this recipe, the cottage cheese prepared in this way can be given to children and even babies.

Milk and lemon curd

Ingredients:

• milk - 1 liter.
• lemon - 1/2 pc.

Recipe for cottage cheese from milk and lemon:

1. Bring the milk to a boil
2. In boiling milk, survive the juice from half a lemon, as soon as the milk curdles, remove from the heat.
3. Cool and drain.

How to make soda curd

Of course, cottage cheese already contains calcium, but a certain category of people requires an increased calcium content - children, pregnant women, nursing mothers, the elderly, people suffering from atherosclerosis, anemia, kidney and liver diseases.

To replenish calcium in the body, you can include calcified cottage cheese in the diet, but not more often than 2 - 3 times a week. Such a healthy cottage cheese can be prepared at home by adding calcium chloride, which is sold in pharmacies.

Ingredients:

• milk - 1 l.
• calcium chloride (calcium chloride) - 2 tbsp. l. liquid or 6 gr. dry calcium

Homemade Calcified Curd Recipe

1. Heat milk to 40 0.
2. Add calcium chloride to milk, mix well.
3. Bring milk to a boil, stirring constantly. As soon as the milk boils, remove from heat and let the product cool down.
4. Strain through cheesecloth.

Calcium chloride can be replaced with calcium lactate tablets, and can also be purchased at pharmacies. The recipe is as follows: 8 - 10 tablets per 1 liter of milk. Grind the tablets into powder and add to the milk, brought to a boil. Stir well, as the milk curdles, strain it.

How to make cottage cheese at home

Our supermarkets sell cottage cheese, which is very popular with customers - it is a delicate and tasty grained cottage cheese and can also be made at home.

Ingredients:

• milk - 1 l.
• citric acid - 1/2 tsp
• salt - 1/2 tsp.
• heavy cream - 6 tbsp. l.

Recipe for cottage cheese with lemon juice:

1. Pour milk into a saucepan, place on the stove and bring to a boil.
2. Remove the pan from heat, add citric acid to the milk and stir for a few minutes.
3. Cover the pan with a cotton napkin and leave for 4 hours to separate the whey.
4. Strain as soon as the whey drains, without removing the curd from the gauze, rinse it with cold boiled water and squeeze it out to make a dry curd.
5. Transfer the curd to a bowl, add salt, cream, mix well.

Homemade kefir cottage cheese

Another interesting recipe for cottage cheese without heat treatment - you can use kefir or yogurt.

1. If homemade curdled milk, pour it into a plastic container and put it in the freezer. Kefir can be frozen in store packaging.
2. Put frozen yogurt or kefir in a colander with gauze.
3. Hang the thawed mass in gauze over some container and keep until all the whey is drained.
4. Of course, cooking quickly in this way will not work - while it thaws, while it drains, in total, they say, it takes 8 hours.

Homemade cottage cheese made from natural cow's milk will cost almost half the price of a store one. There are no chemical additives and antibiotics in it, with the help of which they increase the shelf life of raw materials. To get a healthy and safe product of our own production, you will have to go through three stages: the transformation of milk into yogurt, heat treatment and separation of the mass from whey.

Selection of raw materials

What base to use for cottage cheese? There is an opinion that store-bought pasteurized milk is "dead" and is not suitable for such purposes. Better to go to the market or visit familiar farmers, where you can get hold of a natural cow product.

Packaged milk is suitable for making cottage cheese, if there is no other raw material, but when choosing it, you should take into account some of the nuances:

1. Do not buy options with a long shelf life. They must contain antibiotics that do not allow the raw material to sour.
2. Choose a product with a fat content of 3.6% or more.
3. Remember that about 200 g of cottage cheese is obtained from 1 liter of packaged raw materials.

Pasteurized milk is more expensive than homemade milk sold on the market. Manufacturers subject the product to heat treatment, therefore, when reheated, it will lose 60 - 70% of nutrients.

Packaged raw materials have several advantages:

1. Store-bought cottage cheese has a soft and delicate texture. It is not as grainy as the whole bovine version.
2. It is enough to knead the product with a fork to turn it into an airy homogeneous mass, which is ideal for baking. You do not need to grind the fermented milk component with a blender or through a sieve.
3. Pasteurized milk cottage cheese is suitable for people who are afraid to eat extra calories. The product is obtained dietary, with minimal fat content and delicate creamy taste.

1. Natural raw materials contain a lot of calcium and other minerals, useful for both adults and children.
2. The cottage cheese turns out to be fatty, with a characteristic sour taste.
3. A liter of whole milk is 250-300 g of a fermented milk product plus cream, which can be removed from the raw material on the first or second day of settling.

The whey remaining after straining the curd is used to make okroshka, added to the dough for dumplings or pies.

Milk preparation

If you are not sure about the quality of the cow product, it is recommended to boil it. High temperatures kill E. coli and disease-causing bacteria. You can melt cottage cheese from sour milk, or rather, from curdled milk, so the raw materials must be brought to the correct consistency.

Dishes
Pour the whole or pasteurized product into a glass jar or earthenware jug. Iron pots and other containers are not suitable for settling milk. Fermentation triggers oxidative processes, and the raw material takes on an unpleasant aftertaste.

Banks are not sealed, but only covered with a towel or rag. The lid, unlike the fabric, does not allow air to pass through, which accelerates the fermentation of the product. The rag also protects the raw material from ultraviolet radiation. Milk in the sun not only sours quickly, but it can turn green and spoil, especially if it is a pasteurized variety.

How to speed up fermentation
To get yogurt in 1-2 days, add a piece of rye or black bread to the raw material. Fresh bread is also suitable, because the main thing is the yeast contained in the additive. Mushrooms activate fermentation, and milk turns sour in 12-24 hours, depending on the freshness of the product itself.

It is recommended to add 1-2 tablespoons of sour cream or 150-250 ml of kefir to boiled raw materials cooled to 40-38 degrees. Foods contain lactic bacteria, which are responsible for fermentation. It is better to use homemade sour cream or kefir, rather than store-bought.

The third option is citric acid or vinegar. A spoonful of the additive is diluted in 3-4 liters of warm milk. Stir thoroughly and leave for 1-2 hours. The raw material turns into curdled milk almost instantly. Whey obtained from milk with vinegar should not be drunk or used for making okroshka. The product increases the acidity of the stomach, irritates the walls and can burn the mucous membranes. An alternative to vinegar is freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Pasteurized milk is mixed with dry bacteria or liquid starter cultures, which are sold in pharmacies and large supermarkets. The additive is activated only in heat, therefore the raw material is preheated. Bacteria transform milk into yogurt in just 6-8 hours.

The right place
The containers with the workpiece must be warm:

• next to the battery;
• near the stove;
• you can lean the jar against a hot pot or kettle;
• place next to the back of the refrigerator.

Milk quickly turns sour in the bathroom, because it is always warm there. The main thing is that sunlight does not fall on the container with the product, because of which vitamin C evaporates and the taste of the future cottage cheese worsens.

Important: In the refrigerator, the fermentation processes are inhibited, and the milk does not turn into yogurt, but simply becomes unusable.

Pasteurized or whole food should not be stirred, pounded, whipped or shaken. Wait until the milk separates into yellowish-greenish whey and large white breasts. If small flakes are floating in the container, then the process is not over yet. On average, 1 to 3 days is enough for the raw material to reach the correct consistency, and it can be heated.

Heat treatment

Carefully pour the sour milk into a large saucepan: for 3 liters of product, you should take dishes with a volume of 5 liters or more. The curd rises slightly during cooking and may escape if the container is too small.

Put the pot on an electric or gas stove, turn on the minimum temperature. The yogurt needs to be heated, but not brought to a boil. It is recommended to regularly check the temperature of the liquid with your fingers: dip your index or middle in the raw material and wait 2-3 seconds. If it is too hot, turn down the power or turn off the stove.

Stir the future cottage cheese with a wooden or iron spoon, but not too often. When large lumps float to the surface, set the pan aside and allow to cool slightly. It remains to strain the curd and squeeze out the excess whey.

There is also a steam heat treatment option. Heat water in a large saucepan, and put a smaller container into it, into which the yogurt is poured. Warm up for 15–20 minutes, until small flakes collapse into a large breast resembling jelly in consistency.

Microwave option
The method will appeal to girls who want to spend a minimum of time preparing a healthy product.

1. Transfer the yogurt into a liter jar or microwave oven with high sides.
2. Set the power in the range of 360 - 400 W.
3. Timer for 10 minutes, do not cover the jar with anything.
4. The finished curd will float to the surface, and the whey will turn transparent greenish. If it has a milky shade, you need to turn on the microwave for another 2-3 minutes.

It remains to strain the cottage cheese when it cools down. You do not need to squeeze the mass, it will turn out to be rather dry.

Tip: If you put the microwave on maximum power, the process will not speed up. The mass dries up from high temperatures and burns at the edges.

Oven recipe
A convenient and simple way to melt cottage cheese is to put it in the oven. To get a lean fermented milk product, only yogurt is used. If you need fatty cottage cheese, mix sour milk with sour cream: for 3 liters of the first ingredient, approximately 1-1.5 liters of the second.

Pour the products into an enamel pan, cover. Preheat the oven to 145–150 degrees, simmer the yogurt for 45 minutes. Turn off, leave inside until cool. Separate from the whey, let it brew and can be consumed.

Multicooker cottage cheese

• Pour the sour milk into a bowl.
• Select the "Heating" mode.
• Set the timer for half an hour, if you need dry crumbly cottage cheese, then for 45 minutes.
• Discard the mass in a colander. After cooling it can be consumed.

No more than 2-3 liters of sour milk is poured into a 5 liter bowl. If there is too much yogurt, during cooking it will run away and flood the multicooker.

We filter correctly

You will need a clean saucepan or large bowl, a thick piece of cloth or cheesecloth that is folded in at least 4 layers. Attach a colander to the container, put a rag inside so that its edges hang from the bowl by 4-5 cm.

Pour out the curd gradually, pushing the large pieces with a spatula. When all the mass is in a colander, it needs to be lightly tamped and knocked down into one lump. Tie the gauze like a pouch and hang it on a hook or rope. Place a bowl or saucepan under the curd, into which the remaining liquid will drain.

You can not hang the gauze, but put a press on top:

• one and a half liter bottle of water;
• grindstone;
• two-kilogram dumbbell.

Cover the cottage cheese on top with foil or a plate. If you like a soft “wet” product, 20–40 minutes is enough. To get dry crumbly cottage cheese, you need to hold the press for 2-3 hours. Store the prepared mass in the refrigerator. It is advisable to use it within 3-4 days, because the home product quickly deteriorates.

The method works with any milk: whole, sterilized, pasteurized, or even lactose-free options. The raw materials do not need to be defended, it is enough to heat up to 40 degrees and add 10% calcium chloride powder.

For 500 ml of base, take 1 tbsp. l of a pharmaceutical preparation. Stir the milk until the calcium is completely dissolved, wait until it boils. The mass will curl up and lumps will float to the surface. Cool the workpiece and strain.

Important: You can eat no more than 100 g of cottage cheese per day, prepared with calcium chloride, otherwise mineral metabolism in the body will be disrupted.

Option without heat treatment

Pour the yogurt into a plastic container or glass bowl and put it in the freezer. Wait for the mass to freeze and turn into a hard, white breast. Take out the curdled milk and put in a colander covered with gauze. When the mixture has melted, hang it over a bowl and wait for all the whey to drain. Delicate and fluffy cottage cheese reminiscent of mascarpone is ready to eat.

Curd mass for the little ones

Pour 3 liters of milk into a saucepan, bring to a boil

1. Add 1.5 l of kefir
2. Switch the stove to minimum fire
3. Keep for 10 minutes, stirring gently
4. When the mass curdles, cool and lay on cheesecloth
5. Mix the curd with bananas, apples or other fruits. Bring in a blender until smooth
6. A delicious and healthy dessert for kids and adults is ready.

Homemade cottage cheese is one of the healthiest foods that you can eat every day. It will strengthen teeth, bones, immunity and improve mood. And the preparation of curd mass from whole or pasteurized milk will take only 40-50 minutes, not counting the time spent on the purchase and settling of raw materials.

Video: how to cook cottage cheese at home