How to Make Organic Herbed Cheese at Home

Here's an easy way to make your own organic herbed cheese at home. This is a simple soft white cheese you can make with ingredients and tools you probably already have in your kitchen right now. With it's mild and sweet flavor, this cheese is great as a spread for crackers, crumbling on salads or tacos, or as an elegant cheese ball for a party appetizer.

You will need a few ingredients and implements to make your cheese perfectly. Whole organic milk is preferred for a sweeter flavored cheese. Fresh milk is ideal if you live near a dairy and can attain it, but as that is not likely for the average person, any organic brand will do fine. Salt, distilled white vinegar, and some fresh herbs of your choice chopped finely are the only other ingredients you need to mke your herbed cheese. You can experiment with different combinations of herbs. Oregano, thyme, majoram, basil, and rosemary all work well.

You will also need a couple of large pieces of cheesecloth, a colander for draining, and a candy thermometer to accurately guage temperatures while heating the organic milk. Accurate temperature is vital in making cheese, so make sure you have a good thermometer.

To make a one pound ball of cheese, you will need 10 cups of whole organic milk. Heat the milk slowly in a large sauce pan over low heat, until your thermometer reads 180 degrees. While heating, stir the milk often with a wire wisk. When it reaches 180 degrees, keep it at that temperature for ten minutes. After the ten minutes, turn off the heat. Now, sprinkle the milk with 2 and 1/2 tablespoons of distilled white vinegar, stirring the vinegar in gently, and then let the milk mixture sit for about a minute.

At this point, the milk will start to separate, with the curd sinking to the bottom of the pan, and a cloudy liquid, called whey, rising to the top. If the milk isn't separating, you will want to add small amounts of vinegar at a time until it does.