Why Our Editors Can’t Stop Cooking With Cottage Cheese
Each month in Bon Appétit, our staff shares unfussy recipe ideas you can call upon any day of the week. Because yes, our editors love to cook, but sometimes we need to get dinner on the table 12 minutes ago. That’s when we look to pantry and fridge staples that can quickly morph into delicious meals. This month, it’s all about cottage cheese.
Before you roll your eyes, consider the cheese’s epic pedigree. In Book IX of The Odyssey, Homer describes something strikingly similar to modern-day cottage cheese. When Odysseus and his men enter the Cyclops Polyphemus’s cave, they find it stocked with cheese and dairy supplies. Later, they watch Polyphemus “curdle half the milk and set it aside in wicker strainers,” creating curds that separate from the whey. This ancient coagulation technique is instantly recognizable today: the same basic method used to create cottage cheese. An epic tale with a side of dairy history.
From Mythical Caves to Gen-Z Feeds
Fast-forward from the lair of a mythical creature to the feeds of Gen-Z influencers, and the tangy, curd-y cheese is still having a moment. It has outlasted empires, survived diet fads, and reinvented itself time and time again. These days, people can’t get enough of the protein source. Layered into dishes, stuffed into fillings, and swiped onto snacks, there are so many ways to revel in the curds. (Just not scooped into cantaloupe halves, okay? You can do better.) Read on for how our editors cook with cottage cheese at home.
Five Protein-Powered Cottage Cheese Dishes Our Editors Love
Cottage Cheese Caramelized Onion Dip
One editor says she’s a convert to the glory of cottage cheese. Her after-school snack from preschool through high school was Knudsen 4% spooned directly from her own personal tub and topped with generous shakes of seasoning. While she endorses that combo wholeheartedly, our deputy food editor Hana Asbrink’s recipe has leveled up her game. It has all the best bits of the classic dip: rich flavor from well-cooked onions that skirt the line between sweet and savory, plus a moreish lactic tang. It’s also pleasantly satiating from the protein-packed dairy swap. And after a quick blitz in the blender, it gets a whipped, airy texture ideal for scooping up with wavy-cut potato chips, plus the editor’s personal favorite, wavy-cut carrots. Add a bag of potato chips and you’ve got yourself a party.
Herbaceous Pasta Plus Dessert
Cottage cheese holds a permanent spot on another editor’s weekly grocery list. Not only does it make a great impromptu snack, but a craveable dip, silky mousse, filling smoothie, and more. Because it’s so mild, you can work it into countless dishes. Her favorite use: blending it with whatever herbs are in the fridge and tossing the verdant sauce with warm pasta. But she’s even blended it with melted chocolate for a quick sweet treat.
Colorful Baby Food
One editor’s baby has graduated to solid foods, but the freezer is still overflowing with purée cubes from months ago: sweet potato, beet, broccoli, pea, mango. “Anyone who knows me will understand how this happened.” So now, at the end of mealtime, if he still seems hungry, the editor microwaves a few cubes, swirls them into a spoonable dairy, and calls it a second course. Think: sweet potato with a spoonable dairy, broccoli plus ricotta, or most recently, beet plus cottage cheese. He happily gobbled it up, staining his lips fuschia and destroying his outfit in the process. As is the fate for all children’s clothes.
Elote Salad
Another editor often doubles or even quadruples recipes for a party so she can have leftovers the next day. “I love leftovers, but make it fun!” After setting out a batch of charred elote salad—flame-kissed corn, mayo, chipotles in adobo, lime, red onion, cilantro—at a recent grillout, it was gone within seconds, and her guilty conscience took over. “I set more out. I couldn’t resist! My friends were begging.” The next day, she found a meager deli container of what was left over in the back of the fridge, needing a little sprucing. She spooned in some cottage cheese, more seasoning, and voila.
A Mind-Blowing Berry Smoothie
One editor admits she used to hate cottage cheese. “The flavor was fine—good, actually!—but it was the texture I couldn’t quite stomach. Lumpy curds, ugh.” Then one day, she had a hankering for a smoothie, and all she had in the fridge was a tub of cottage cheese that was accidentally picked up instead of yogurt. “How bad could it be?” Reader, it was in fact so good that she knew she had to develop a formal recipe. Blending cottage cheese provides all the rich creaminess of yogurt or frozen banana—important for thickening a smoothie—with seasoning built right in. It offers a subtle tang that offsets but doesn’t overpower the other flavors in the drink. Best of all, the curds totally disappear in the blender. With cottage cheese blended right in—yes—this berry smoothie will keep you full until lunch.
Want More Cottage Cheese?
Cottage cheese has traveled from Homer’s ancient world to your blender, proving it’s a protein-powered staple worth cooking with. Use it in a party-ready dip, a verdant pasta sauce, a quick baby meal, a leftover salad booster, or a smoothie thickener. The curds are here to stay.
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