Fresh cheeses
Paneer, ricotta, quark, cottage cheese and queso fresco: unripened, mild and eaten within days.
Fresh cheeses are eaten within days of making, with no ripening at all. Milk is set with acid or rennet, the curd is drained, and what remains is soft, moist and mild. Paneer and chhena in India, quark and tvorog in Central and Eastern Europe, cottage cheese in Britain and North America, fromage frais in France and queso fresco across Latin America all belong here. They are the oldest and simplest cheeses, and the easiest to make at home.
How they are made
Fresh cheese starts with warm milk and something to curdle it. Paneer and chhena are set with heat and acid, usually lemon juice, vinegar or sour whey, so no rennet is needed, a point that matters to many vegetarian households. Quark and fromage frais are set slowly by lactic bacteria, sometimes helped by a drop of rennet. The curd is cut or ladled, drained in cloth or moulds, and sometimes pressed. Because nothing is aged, the cheese keeps the taste of the milk itself: sweet, clean and lightly sour.
Paneer, chhena and the Indian thread
India is one of the great fresh-cheese cultures of the world. Paneer is pressed into a firm block that holds its shape in curries such as palak paneer and on tandoor skewers. Chhena is the same kind of curd left unpressed and kneaded smooth, the base of Bengali and Odia sweets such as rasgulla, sandesh and chhena poda. Surti paneer from Gujarat is a softer buffalo-milk cheese set with rennet and kept in its whey, and the Parsi topli nu paneer, moulded in small baskets, is a wedding favourite.
Around the world
Every dairy culture has its own fresh cheese. Tvorog is the farmer's cheese of Russia and Ukraine, eaten with sour cream and fried into syrniki. Queso fresco and queso blanco are crumbled over beans and tacos in Mexico and Central America. Cottage cheese has loose, washed curds in a light dressing of cream. Ethiopian ayib is a crumbly cheese made from soured milk after the butter has been churned, served beside spicy stews. Ricotta, strictly a whey cheese, is eaten fresh in the same way.
Worth knowing
- Paneer: Pressed, acid-set cheese of India, cooked in curries and grilled
- Chhena: Unpressed curd kneaded smooth for the sweets of Bengal and Odisha
- Quark: Lactic fresh cheese of Germany, spread on bread and baked into cheesecake
- Cottage cheese: Loose, washed curds dressed with a little cream
- Queso fresco: Salted, crumbly fresh cheese of Mexico and Central America
- Tvorog: East European farmer's cheese for syrniki and Easter paskha
- Surti paneer: Soft buffalo-milk cheese of Surat, kept in whey
- Topli nu paneer: Parsi basket-moulded cheese served at weddings
Good to know
- Keep fresh cheese covered in the fridge and use it within a few days of making or opening.
- Shop-bought paneer softens if it sits in hot water for a few minutes before it goes into a curry.
- Drain watery fresh cheese in a muslin-lined sieve before baking with it.
- Freezing changes the texture: firm paneer copes better than soft curd.
Sources and further reading
- Paneer on Wikipedia
- Chhena, Wikipedia
- Quark (dairy product), Wikipedia
- Cheese, Encyclopaedia Britannica
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.
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Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Bandel cheese: Rangan Datta Wiki, CC BY-SA 4.0, source