How to Make Fresh Mozzarella: I think this milk is spoiled!
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Fresh mozzarella has become really popular in recent years, and for good reason. It is so much creamier and smoother than the mozzarella we are used to buying in chunks at the grocery store, or especially grated in a bag. I fell in love with fresh mozzarella because of caprese salad. My favorite food of all time is tomatoes, especially garden tomatoes, so when I am ordering anything, if it has tomatoes, I order it. That was how I encountered caprese, a beautiful combination of tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and balsamic vinegar. I order it whenever I can, but was shocked when I went to buy mozzarella at the grocery store and it was $12.99 a pound. I made cheese in Garde Manger class when I was in culinary school, but we all made different types and I made mascarpone and not mozzarella. I knew it was possible to make it myself however, so I started some research. I also knew that I might want to use this as an activity for my students, since I teach Foods and Nutrition classes.
If you would like to make this yourself, here are the products you may need but may not have at the house:
Vegetable rennet: https://amzn.to/3omUjMc
Citric Acid: https://amzn.to/2L3B9wl
Thermometer: https://amzn.to/3qtBSr4
I found an easy tutorial and then purchased supplies. Surprisingly, my first batch I made turned out. For years, I have been doing this either as a demo in Foods 1 or a hands on lab in Foods 2. It always seemed like when students were making it, that about half of the groups got it correct and the other half did not. Also, high schoolers were not terribly impressed by cheese that was mild and didn’t taste like hot Cheetos. Admittedly, homemade mozzarella is very mild, but it is creamy and works wonderfully with tomatoes and basil. It is funny working with high schoolers because they are disgusted by the process that the cheese goes through. The curdling grossed them out completely. It was fun to explain and show that all cheese goes through that process and that it is not gross, it is a natural preservation method that has served us well for millennia. Being high schoolers however, they did not believe me. It is always funny to me that high school students find the process of cheese being made more disgusting than chicken nuggets.
In recent years, I discovered that Aldi had fresh mozzarella that is very inexpensive and good so I purchase that sometimes rather than making my own. Making your own is fun, but it requires dishes so...yeah.
Even if making mozzarella isn’t something you would want to do every time, I recommend that you try it at least once. Besides the economy of it, you also learn more about how your food is made. The cheese we eat is all made in a much larger version of what we can do at home. Cheese started out as something that we made for ourselves to preserve milk. Taking yourself back to that can help you feel connected to your food and your past in a much more real way. Many of the artistic elements of food are being lost in production and distribution. It’s time we took it back, at least in a small way. If you decide to try your own, comment and let me know how it goes. We learn the most when things mess up, so you have nothing to lose! Except maybe a gallon of milk. Make food, make messes, and most of all, HAVE FUN! Also, watch my video and subscribe to my channel! It helps so much!