Herbal and grassy
Flowers and summer grass: Alpine pasture cheeses, herb-coated goat cheese and Sage Derby.
Herbal and grassy cheeses taste of summer pasture: fresh grass, hay, wild flowers and mountain herbs. Some carry the flavour through the milk itself, from animals grazing high meadows, as in Alpine pasture cheeses. Others have herbs added: Corsican sheep's milk cheese coated in maquis herbs, Sage Derby marbled with sage, halloumi folded with mint, and Swiss Schabziger, green with blue fenugreek.
Grass to milk
What an animal eats reaches its milk. Fresh pasture gives milk more carotene, which colours cheese yellow, and aromatic compounds called terpenes from herbs and flowers. Studies of French Alpine cheeses have found more terpenes in cheese made from mountain pasture milk than from valley meadows or hay. This is part of why summer pasture cheeses, such as Beaufort d'alpage and Bitto from the Valtellina, are prized and often sold under their own name.
Herbs added
Cheesemakers add herbs in many ways. Corsica's Brin d'Amour, also called Fleur du Maquis, is a sheep's milk cheese coated in rosemary, savory and juniper. Sage Derby is marbled green with sage. Halloumi is traditionally folded around dried mint. Turkey's otlu peynir, herb cheese, from around Van, is mixed with wild mountain herbs and ripened in brine. Schabziger, from the Swiss canton of Glarus, is a hard cone of cheese flavoured with blue fenugreek, which turns it pale green.
Using herbal cheese
Fresh herb cheeses suit salads and picnics, and grilled halloumi with its mint is good with tomatoes and flatbread. Schabziger is grated over pasta and potatoes, or mixed with butter and spread on bread. Alpine pasture cheeses suit a dry white wine from the same mountains, and herb-coated goat or sheep cheese a Provençal rosé. Eat herb-coated cheeses fairly young, while the herbs are still fragrant.
Worth knowing
- Beaufort: Alpine cheese, prized when made on summer pasture
- Brin d'Amour: Corsican cheese coated in maquis herbs
- Sage Derby: English cheese marbled with sage
- Schabziger: Swiss cone of cheese with blue fenugreek
- Halloumi: Folded with dried mint
- Otlu peynir: Herb cheese of eastern Turkey
- Appenzeller: Washed in a secret herbal brine
Sources and further reading
Original text by the EveryCheese desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Customs are described as tradition, not as advice. If we have something wrong, tell us.
Herbal and grassy on EveryCheese
The cheeses written up so far, best known first.