Mixed milks cheeses

Cheeses made from two or three milks together: Feta, Halloumi, La Tur and many farm cheeses.

Many cheeses are made from more than one milk. Shepherds have always run mixed flocks of sheep and goats, and a farm with a few cows and a few goats made one cheese from both. Feta allows up to 30 per cent goat's milk with sheep's milk, halloumi blends sheep's, goat's and cow's milk, and Spain's Cabrales and Picón and Italy's La Tur and Robiola di Roccaverano bring two or three milks together.

Why blend

Each milk brings something of its own. Sheep's milk adds richness and body, goat's milk brightness and a white colour, and cow's milk volume and a mild, supple paste. Blends also follow the farm year: as goats and ewes dry off before kidding and lambing, cow's milk fills the vat, so the share of each milk in some cheeses changes with the season. Protected cheeses often fix a range. Cabrales, for example, may be made from cow's milk alone or blended with goat's and sheep's milk.

Eastern Mediterranean

Halloumi, registered as a protected name in the European Union in 2021, is made from sheep's or goat's milk or both, and cow's milk is allowed alongside them. Greek kasseri is sheep's milk with a little goat's milk, and feta itself is a blend in most of its makers' hands. In Lebanon and Syria, shanklish and many village cheeses are made from whatever milk the household has. Turkish tulum and Cypriot anari are made from the milk or whey of mixed flocks.

Farm and mountain cheeses

Small farms around the world make mixed-milk cheeses for their own tables, from the Pyrenees to the Atlas, the Caucasus and the Andes. Portugal's Rabaçal blends sheep's and goat's milk, and Picón Bejes-Tresviso, a blue of Cantabria, may combine cow's, sheep's and goat's milk. In the Himalaya, churpi may combine yak and cow's milk, and the milk of the dzo or chauri, a cross of yak and cattle, is a kind of blend in itself.

Worth knowing

Feta: Sheep's milk with up to 30 per cent goat's milk
Halloumi: Sheep's and goat's milk, with cow's milk allowed
La Tur: Piedmontese cheese of cow's, sheep's and goat's milk
Robiola di Roccaverano: Goat's milk cheese that may include cow's or sheep's
Cabrales: Asturian blue of one, two or three milks
Picón Bejes-Tresviso: Cantabrian blue of mixed milks
Kasseri: Greek sheep's milk cheese with some goat's milk

Good to know

Labels on protected cheeses state the milks; farm cheeses may vary from batch to batch.
Mixed-milk cheeses suit people who find pure goat or sheep cheese too strong.

Sources and further reading

About this page

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.