No-Cook Cottage Cheese, Using Powdered Milk

Way back in January, when it’s much too cold to go outside in my neck of the woods, I tested out a lot of soft cheese recipes that used powdered milk.  And I was able to make some nice cottage cheese, as well as Neufchatel and queso fresco.  All of these items will be very nice to be able to make when we can’t get them from the store anymore.

A couple of weeks ago I started playing with rennet tablets in earnest, in an attempt to see what other cheeses I could make from powdered milk that would actually taste good.  I came across a recipe for cottage cheese that not only used powdered milk, but it also didn’t require cooking, something I find to be a huge plus.  But does it taste any good?  Let’s find out.

No-Cook Cottage Cheese

1 quart warm water

2 cup nonfat dry milk powder

1 Junket rennet tablet dissolved in 2 tablespoons cold water

Combine all ingredients in a quart container and set in a warm place.  Then you have three options:

• Let stand in a warm place, undisturbed for at least 8-10 hours, or until set and somewhat soured.  After 8-10 hours, stir with a fork and break into cheese curds.  Pour the curds and whey into a strainer and rinse in hot and then cold water.  Then drain for 30 minutes and salt to taste.
• If you want a firmer curd, put blended ingredients into a medium bowl and let sit 20 minutes.  Cut or stir to break into small curds and drain.  Cover drained curds with boiling water, cover with a lid or plastic, and let stand 10 minutes. 
• For even firmer curds, cut or break curds into ½” pieces.  Heat these to 140°F in salted water until rubbery, about 20 minutes.  Remove from heat and drain and refrigerate.

The resulting curds may be used to replace cottage cheese in recipes. 

Family reviews:  I used the first option.  Buttercup and I were the only cottage cheese-eaters around for taste-testing.  Neither one of us liked this cottage cheese and vastly prefer the other recipes I’ve posted here on the blog.  However, I used this cottage cheese in some zucchini ziti (basically kinda like zucchini lasagna) last week and nobody noticed anything objectionable.  If I didn’t have other options for cottage cheese to be used in baking, I would make this again.  I would not go to the trouble of making this for fresh eating.  It just wasn’t good.  And the other recipes are faster.

Links to related posts:

An In-Depth Discussion of Powdered Milk 

Cottage Cheese

Homemade Queso Fresco  

Junket Tablets

Neufchatel 

Don’t Waste the Whey!