ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Kinds Of Cheese And Cooking With Cheese

Updated on August 20, 2012

Cooking Techniques - Cooking with Cheese Tips

Cheese is one of the most popular cooking ingredients used in the United States and part of the culinary basics is knowing how to use cheese to create healthy and delicious recipes.

There are many varieties, each with their own cooking properties and each with their own set of calories and fat values.

Each kind of cheese enhances a dish for different reasons and gives different flavors – some cheeses are interchangeable while others are not in certain recipes.

Cheese also comes in many different varieties within the same cheese and can be as versatile as the cook is able to use it recipes. There are many, many forms, tastes, and components of cheese and it is a wonderful journey to discover some of the varieties.


Cooking Techniques - Cooking with Cheese Tips

  • It is best to use cheese cold when you are grating and shredding
  • Softer cheeses such as cream cheese work better in recipes when brought to room temperature
  • Natural cheese volume - 4 ounces will yield 1 cup shredded
  • Hard cheese volume – 3 ounces will yield 1 cup grated


  • Softer cheese such as blue, feta or Gorgonzola - 6 ounces will yield 1 cup
  • Regular cheese is 30% to 40% fat
  • Part skim milk cheese is 7% to 15% fat
  • Choose a low fat or fat free cheese to reduce fat and calories although watch the sodium
  • Natural cheese has many nutrients and less additives than other forms of cheese
  • If you are on a low sodium diet, you should avoid cheese with more than 400 mg of sodium per serving
  • Low lactose choices in cheese would be cheese made from sheep or goat’s milk
  • Feta cheese is low in lactose
  • Cheddar, Gruyere, Parmigiano Regiano are good aged cheeses that are better for low lactose diets and also have more calcium
  • Goat cheese although sometimes has a somewhat different taste to some, is easily mixed with pasta or crumbled on salads and adds flavor to the dish - it functions instead of a sauce in pasta

Some of my personal favorites when it comes to cheeses and suggestions on how to use them!

BLUE CHEESE

Make a blue cheese dressing with low-fat buttermilk and cottage cheese - add roughly 2 ounces of good quality blue cheese. Add a wee bit of lemon juice and chopped onion and you have a wonderful low calorie (36 per 2 tablespoons), low carb (1 gm) dressing to put on a mixed green salad or spinach salad.

courtesy wikicommons
courtesy wikicommons

GOAT CHEESE

Goat cheese is a rather soft cheese and is wonderful when mixed with hot pasta of any sort. Combined with tomatoes, fresh basil, spinach and chicken, it makes a wonderfully creamy pasta dish - it virtually becomes the sauce. You can also add goat cheese to eggs - it adds creaminess and moisture to the eggs while giving you a little cheese boost.

courtesy wikicommons
courtesy wikicommons

CREAM CHEESE

You can make a delicious cheesecake using yogurt and my favorite choice is Greek yogurt. Combine that with some cream cheese and you can make a low-calorie, low-fat version of the New York favorite. I use the Neufchatel version of cream cheese because it is lower in fat and lower in calories.  It has always performed perfectly in recipes. Life would not be life without cheesecakes!  Cream cheese is great for other things of course such as pie crusts or fruit bars.  I also use it in place of mayonnaise on sandwiches - just a smear of cream cheese to me adds flavor and texture to the sandwich. 

courtesy wikicommons
courtesy wikicommons

FETA CHEESE

Feta is one of my favorites and is one of the healthier cheese out there. Use crumbled feta to make a healthier pizza or use it to make a Greek salad. In a traditional Greek salad or a Greek chickpea salad, you can't go wrong - it's paired with tomato and cucumber with a smattering of green onions or peppers. Feta cheese also goes great on pasta or on top of salads. Feta cheese is also great in pita bread sandwiches or added to scrambled eggs - or in a quiche.

Cooking Techniques: Cooking with Cheese Tips

In short, there are many wonderful cheeses out there to sample and use as ingredients as part of your culinary basics in the quest for healthy recipes. These are only a few of my favorites.

Check out your supermarket for more wonderful cheeses.  The possibilities for using cheese are endless and there are many fine cookbooks dedicated just to using cheese or you can also find millions of recipes on-line using just about any cheese you can imagine.

Cheese is a very versatile ingredient as long as you know how to use it and what cheeses go with what situation.  Enjoy exploring the wonderful world of cooking with cheeses!


working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)