Cheese and Dairy for Beginners: 15 Ideas to Start With
Cheese and dairy products all begin with milk, and a few simple ideas explain most of them. These 15 concepts cover the kinds of milk, how milk becomes cheese, everyday products and milk sugar. A good starting point before reading labels.
Milk
- 🥛 Cow's milk
- The most common milk in the world and the base of most cheese, yogurt and butter. Mild and creamy in flavour.
- 🥛 Goat's milk
- Milk with a lightly tangy flavour and small fat droplets, used for goat cheeses such as chèvre.
- 🥛 Pasteurized milk (Pasteurised milk)
- Milk heated briefly to destroy harmful bacteria. Most milk and cheese sold in shops is made this way.
- 🧀 Raw milk
- Milk that has never been heat-treated. It gives some traditional cheeses a more complex flavour, but it needs careful handling and carries more risk.
How cheese is made
- 🧫 Starter culture
- Friendly bacteria that sour the milk and develop flavour. They also make yogurt and cultured butter.
- 🧫 Rennet
- An enzyme that curdles milk into solid curd and liquid whey. It can be animal, microbial or plant-based, which matters for vegetarians.
- 🧪 Casein
- The main protein in milk. Rennet and acid make it clump together into curd, the base of all cheese.
- 🧀 Cheese
- Curd that has been drained, shaped, salted and often aged. Ageing changes texture and flavour, from soft and mild to hard and sharp.
Everyday dairy
- 🧀 Mozzarella
- A fresh, stretchy cheese traditionally made from buffalo or cow's milk and eaten young. Best known on pizza.
- 🧀 Parmesan
- A hard, long-aged Italian cheese, usually grated over pasta. The true one is called Parmigiano Reggiano.
- 🥣 Tvorog (Curd cheese)
- Fresh, soft cheese made by curdling milk with acid or a little culture and draining it. Mild and high in protein.
- 🥣 Yogurt
- Milk fermented by bacteria into a thick, tangy food. Live cultures survive in it if it was not heated afterwards.
- 🧈 Butter
- Made by churning cream until the fat separates from the buttermilk. In the EU it must be at least 80% fat.
Milk sugar
- 🧪 Lactose
- The natural sugar in milk. Cheese and yogurt contain less of it than milk, because bacteria and ageing use it up.
- ❤️ Lactose intolerance
- Some people lack enough lactase enzyme to digest lactose and get bloating or discomfort. It is not an allergy, and many people tolerate aged cheese and yogurt or choose lactose-free products.
Themes
🥛Types of milkFrom cow to reindeer: composition, benefits, value🧀Cheeses of the worldParmesan, feta, bryndza, sulguni and more🥣Fermented milk productsKefir, yogurt, kumis, matsoni, skyr🌍Dairy traditionsRegions, peoples and their dairy products🐄Dairy animalsWhich animals are milked and how their milk differs🚚The journey of milkFrom pasture to shop — step by step❤️Milk and healthCalcium, lactose, allergy, benefits and risks👷JobsWho works with milk🗺️Map of traditionsWorld regions, peoples and their products on a map⚖️ComparisonsKefir or yogurt, sour cream or cream, and more🍳RecipesCottage cheese, yogurt, ghee, paneer, butter — at home📜History of milkFrom domestication to Tetra Pak