Cheeses for lunch
Sandwiches, salads, ploughman's plates and the midday meal.
Lunch is where cheese meets bread most often. The British ploughman's lunch of cheddar, pickle and bread, the French baguette with Comté or ham and butter, the Italian panino with mozzarella, the Greek salad with its slab of feta, the Indian paneer roll and the American grilled cheese all build a midday meal on cheese. It is food that travels well in a box or a pocket.
Bread and cheese
The simplest lunch in many countries is bread and cheese, and many have given it a name. The ploughman's lunch, made popular in English pubs in the 1950s and 1960s, sets cheddar or Stilton beside crusty bread, butter, pickle, apple and raw onion. In France, a casse-croûte might be a baguette with Comté or Camembert, and in Spain a bocadillo de queso. In Georgia, a slice of khachapuri and a plate of fresh cheese with herbs makes a working lunch.
Salads
Greek horiatiki salad sets a slab of feta on tomato, cucumber, onion and olives. Bulgaria's shopska salad is buried under grated sirene. Italy's insalata caprese layers mozzarella with tomato and basil in the colours of the national flag. In the Levant, halloumi is grilled and laid over leaves and herbs, and in Mexico, salads of nopales, the tender pads of the prickly pear cactus, are finished with crumbled queso fresco.
Hot lunches
Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup are an American lunch pairing. Welsh rarebit, cheese melted with mustard and ale and poured over toast, is a British pub lunch. Indian kathi rolls and Mumbai frankies wrap spiced paneer in paratha for busy streets and office canteens. Mexican quesadillas fold cheese into a tortilla, and in Italy, a slice of pizza or a toasted panino with mozzarella fills the lunch hour.
Worth knowing
- Ploughman's lunch: Cheddar, bread, pickle and apple
- Greek salad: Horiatiki with a slab of feta
- Shopska salad: Bulgarian salad under grated sirene
- Caprese salad: Mozzarella, tomato and basil
- Grilled cheese: Melted cheese between toasted bread
- Welsh rarebit: Cheese sauce with mustard and ale on toast
- Quesadilla: Tortilla folded over cheese
- Kathi roll: Paratha wrapped round spiced paneer
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.
Lunch on EveryCheese
The cheeses written up so far, best known first.
🇮🇹 Italy and 3 moreParmesanParmigiano Reggiano
A hard, granular cow's-milk cheese aged at least a year in northern Italy.Cow · Hard · Sharp and tangy-aged
🇮🇪 IrelandSt Tola
Handmade goat's milk cheese from Inagh, County Clare, ranging from fresh logs to aged wheels.Goat · Fresh · Tangy and lactic
🇨🇭 Switzerland and 2 moreGruyère
A hard, pressed Swiss cheese made from raw cow's milk, aged for several months.Cow · Hard · Sweet and caramel
🇮🇹 Italy and 2 moreAsiago
A pressed cow's milk cheese from the Veneto plateau, sold fresh or aged.Cow · Semi-soft · Sweet and caramel
🇳🇵 Nepal and 2 moreChhurpiछुर्पी
A smoked yak and cow milk cheese from the Himalayas, available in soft or hard forms.Yak · Smoked · Tangy and lactic
🇬🇷 GreeceGravieraγραβιέρα
A hard Greek cheese made from sheep or cow milk, aged for months and marked with a crisscross rind.Sheep · Hard · Sweet and caramel
🇭🇷 CroatiaPag cheesePaški sir
A hard sheep's-milk cheese from Croatia's Pag island, aged up to eighteen months.Sheep · Hard · Salty
🇪🇸 SpainMahónformatge de Maó / queso de Mahón
A cow's-milk cheese from Menorca that ranges from soft and mild to hard and sharp.Cow · Semi-soft · Buttery and creamy
🇬🇷 GreeceLadotyri MytilinisΛαδοτύρι Μυτιλήνης
A hard Greek cheese from Lesbos preserved in olive oil since ancient times.Sheep · Hard · Savoury and brothy
🇲🇽 MexicoCotija
A salty, aged cow's milk cheese from Michoacán that crumbles but does not melt.Cow · Semi-hard · Salty
🇬🇷 GreeceFormaelaΦορμαέλα
A hard, pungent sheep or goat milk cheese from Arachova, Greece.Sheep · Hard · Pungent and funky
🇹🇷 TurkeyMihaliç Peyniri
A hard, brined sheep’s milk cheese shaped into rounds or slices for Turkish cookingSheep · Hard
🇽🇰 Kosovo and 2 moreSharr cheeseDjathë i Sharrit / Шарски сир
A hard, salty cow and sheep milk cheese from the Šar Mountains of Kosovo.Cow · Hard · Salty
🇫🇷 FranceTome fraîcheToma fresca
A hard-pressed, unsalted cow's milk cheese from the Aubrac region of France.Cow · Hard · Milky and fresh
🇧🇦 Bosnia and HerzegovinaBosnian smoked cheeseSuhi dimljeni sir
A very dry, piquant low-fat smoked cheese from Bosnia and Herzegovina.Mixed · Smoked · Piquant and spicy
🇩🇪 GermanyHirtenkäse
A German hard cheese aged for eight months, known for its golden color and savory flavor.Cow · Hard · Nutty
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Mahón: Slastic, Public domain, source
- Chhurpi: Arijit Dasgupta, CC BY 2.0, source
- Pag cheese: Silverije, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Gruyère: Rolf Krahl ( Rotkraut ), CC BY 4.0, source
- Sharr cheese: ThinkTank123, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Parmesan: Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- St Tola: HighKing, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Asiago: Shabicht, CC0, source
- Graviera: Catlemur, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Ladotyri Mytilinis: C messier, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Cotija: Leslie Seaton, CC BY 2.0, source
- Tome fraîche: Flblbl, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Bosnian smoked cheese: Security.cyber, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Hirtenkäse: Heinrich von Zügel, Public domain, source