How to Make Cottage Cheese with Sour Milk!

I don't think we've yet talked about my love of cottage cheese.  That's definitely an oversight!  I absolutely love cottage cheese, but I'm pretty darn picky about it.  A lot of varieties I don't like because they are just too salty.  I also prefer the higher fat varieties.  I know, I know that isn't the healthy choice but it's how I like my cottage cheese.

I'm so picky about my cottage cheese that I really only like TWO brands, Land O'Lakes and Lucerne.  Out of all the brands out there, those are the only two that I like.  I'm super lucky that when we moved here from Seattle a few years ago, that Safeway and Dominick's are the same company.  This meant they carried my absolute favorite brand of cottage cheese, Lucerne.  Lucerne is actually the Dominick's house brand.

When we lived in Seattle, I lived right down the road from a Lucerne dairy.  I don't think that's why I love the cottage cheese so much, but it was nice to see the cows that made it almost every day.  I love the Lucerne brand of cottage cheese so much that when I have a special price on Just 4 You, I've been known to buy as many as four large containers.  :)  I can eat that much cottage cheese in about two weeks no problem.  I eat cottage cheese for snacks, breakfast with fruit and use it in a variety of dishes.

About two weeks ago, I was at Meijer and they had gallons of their house brand organic milk marked down to $.63!  Talk about an amazing deal!  I bought two of them and then was too busy to actually use one of them up before it went sour.  I'd read somewhere that you could use sour milk to make your own cottage cheese.  Since I can't buy organic cottage cheese for $.63, I figured I'd give it a go.

I found a recipe on The Self-Sufficient Home Acre, that used sour milk, vinegar, salt and cream.  Since I had a gallon of sour milk, I made a bigger recipe and winged it a bit.

Cottage Cheese

1 gallon organic or regular sour milk
3-4 tablespoons white vinegar
salt to taste
cream or whole milk

Pour milk into a very large pot and heat on medium heat until temperature reaches 185 degrees.  I used a candy thermometer to measure the temperature.  This is going to take about 15-20 minutes.

In the meantime, line a large colander with 3-4 layers of cheesecloth.

Once the sour milk reaches 185 degrees, take it off the heat, remove the thermometer and stir in 3-4 tablespoons of vinegar.  Stir and watch the curds form.  Once the curds and whey have separated, slowly pour into cheesecloth lined colander.

That's the whey making the curds look so yellow.

Once most of the whey has drained, gather edges of cheesecloth and squeeze out excess moisture.  Be careful when doing this as the curds are still extremely hot.  If you have sensitive hands, you might want to let them cool a bit before squeezing.  (This wasn't really a problem for me as I used to be a master barista and pretty much have heat proof hands)

When curds are fairly dry, crumble into a bowl.  Drizzle with cream, whole milk or half and half adding salt to taste.  Store in the refrigerator up to one week.  Makes about 3 cups.

Didn't I tell you it was easy?  For me this is going to be my new go to cottage cheese!  Especially since Meijer regularly marks down their milk super cheap.  Although, I still love Lucerne cottage cheese I can't pass up making my own for less than a dollar!