How to make cottage cheese at home?
Homemade cottage cheese is much healthier than store-bought cottage cheese. The true composition of the latter often remains a mystery to the consumer. Why feed your children something unclear when you can give your child delicious homemade cottage cheese, the ingredients of which you are sure of. Don't know how to make cottage cheese yourself at home? Even a novice housewife can do this, it’s nothing complicated, but as a result you will not only get a healthy product, but also take care of the health of your family.
There are a lot of recipes for making cottage cheese at home. You just have to choose the one that suits you the most, there is a classic, grandma’s version, or you can make it in a slow cooker. Only proven recipes and excellent results.

Homemade cottage cheese from milk - a classic recipe

Grandmothers used this recipe to make cottage cheese at home, and it will remain relevant for a long time. All you need for preparation is good quality milk, ideally country milk. If you can’t buy a farm product, use one that has a shelf life of several days.
Ingredients:
Milk – 3 l
Preparation:

The preparation process for this recipe takes several days. Place the can of milk in a warm place until it turns into curdled milk. If the room is warm, 2 days will be enough; if it is cooler, the process will take 3-4 days.
If you have country milk, cream will form on the surface. They can be removed or left, then the fat content of the cottage cheese will be higher. Curdled milk from natural milk is obtained as a single mass, whereas when using store-bought milk, the curdled milk is collected on top, and whey remains at the bottom.
Carefully pour the curdled milk into a saucepan and place on the stove, turn the heat to low, stir occasionally. After 15-20 minutes, the whey will begin to actively separate.
Prepare a colander in advance, place it on the pan and cover it with gauze. Pour the contents of the pan into a colander, tie a gauze and let the liquid drain well. The cottage cheese is ready.
If you like more moist cottage cheese, leave it in gauze for 3-4 hours, you need it dry, “forget” about it all night. Whey is great for making pancakes, pancakes or bread.
This cottage cheese can be given to a child without fear, and if you are going to introduce it into complementary foods for an infant, do not make the cottage cheese too fatty. It will turn out great too.
The following recipe is very interesting and simple, and you will learn how to make cottage cheese from kefir.

Cottage cheese from frozen kefir

Here, in general, no effort is required to prepare it. The recipe is simple and easy. All you need to do is buy a package of kefir (in soft packaging) and put it in the freezer overnight.
Next, remove the kefir from the freezer, cut and discard the packaging and transfer the kefir to a colander lined with gauze. Don't forget to place a pan under it. The kefir has melted and everything is ready. There is no need to press anything. It turns out very tasty and tender cottage cheese. If you add fruit and give it to your child, he will not distinguish it from store-bought cottage cheese.
Such cottage cheese cannot be subjected to heat treatment! It is very moist and tender, so do not use it for cheesecakes and casseroles. It is best to simply eat it for dessert, adding honey or fresh berries, or use it to make cream.

Sourdough cottage cheese

Cottage cheese according to this recipe is prepared much faster than the classic one, but in addition to milk, you will need a special vivo starter.
If you use country milk, you must first boil it and heat it to a temperature of 40 C. Pasteurized milk can simply be heated to the required temperature.

Ingredients:
Milk – 2.5 -3 l
Vivo starter – 1 pc.
Preparation:
Prepare the milk depending on what kind of milk you have: store-bought or natural farm milk. Take one bottle of starter, pour a little milk into it and shake. Add the starter to the warm milk and mix well. Cover the pan with a lid and set aside for 6-8 hours.
During this time, the milk will turn into curdled milk. Place a saucepan with milk on the stove over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes. You will see for yourself how the whey begins to separate from the curd mass. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.
Place the mixture in a colander and leave for a while to drain the whey. The cottage cheese turns out very tender and tasty.
If you have a slow cooker, the following recipe is for you.

Cottage cheese in a slow cooker

Making cottage cheese according to this recipe is easy and requires no special effort.
Important! Cottage cheese is prepared using sour cream, so you will need a natural product. Read the ingredients carefully; proper sour cream is prepared only from cream; there should be no vegetable fats. If you take low-quality sour cream, you will only ruin all the products.
Ingredients:
Milk – 2 l
Sour cream – 100 gr.
Preparation:

Pour warm milk into the multicooker bowl, add sour cream and mix well. Turn on the Yogurt program for 7 hours. If your multicooker does not have such a function, the Multicook program will also work. Set the temperature to 38°C, time to 7 hours.
After the specified time has passed, stir the milk, turn on the “Multi-cook” program for 40 minutes, t - 95° C.
Drain the cottage cheese in a colander as usual. The longer the whey drains from it, the drier it will be. If you don't know how long you will need, try the cottage cheese periodically. Usually it takes from 1 to 12 hours. It all depends on what you prefer: slightly moist or drier. It is not afraid of heat treatment, so it makes excellent baked goods. Mix with berries and a tasty and healthy treat for your child is ready. An excellent recipe - making cottage cheese is very simple, and besides, you don’t need constant control.

Cottage cheese made from milk and lemon juice

Very fast way- preparing healthy cottage cheese at home. Use any milk, it doesn’t matter in this recipe. Cottage cheese prepared according to this recipe turns out very tasty, but it is better not to use it for baking. Make light and airy desserts from it.
Ingredients:
Milk – 1 l
Juice of half a lemon
Preparation:

Before you start cooking, squeeze the juice out of the lemon. Place the pan with milk on the stove. Heat it well over low heat. As soon as signs of boiling appear, add lemon juice, stir and remove the pan from the heat. You will see the milk curdle instantly and the whey is separated immediately.
Place the mixture in a colander and allow the whey to drain. Literally after 30 minutes you can eat the cottage cheese. This express recipe will come in handy when you want cottage cheese here and now. Despite the fact that it is prepared literally in a matter of minutes, this does not affect the taste in any way.
No less tasty cottage cheese can be made using the following recipe.

Cottage cheese made from milk and kefir

Another quick recipe. To prepare it, the cheapest milk and the same cheap kefir in soft packages are suitable. It is prepared quickly and simply by analogy with the previous recipe.
Ingredients:
Milk – 2 l
Kefir – 1 l
Preparation:
Pour milk into a saucepan and place on the stove over low heat. There is no need to boil the milk; as soon as you see it starts to boil, pour in the kefir. Stir and remove the pan from the heat.
When the milk has cooled to room temperature, drain in a colander. Give time for the serum to drain. After about an hour, the cottage cheese is ready and can be eaten. If you plan to make cheesecakes from it, leave it in a colander a little longer for about two hours.
The next option for making cottage cheese at home is not exactly a recipe, but the result is excellent.

Curd made from sour milk

This is not a recipe, but rather a food rescue. Let’s say you forgot about milk or bought a lot and didn’t have time to use it, and it turned sour. Why throw it away when you can make delicious and healthy cottage cheese. After all, in essence, the milk for cottage cheese should curdle and sour, as with the classic recipe, but here almost everything is ready. There's just a little bit of effort left.
Ingredients:
Milk. How much. Of course, the more there is, the better.
Preparation:

Pour the sour milk into a saucepan and place on the stove. Make the heat low, remember to stir occasionally. As soon as the milk begins to warm up, the whey will immediately begin to separate. It will be enough to keep it on the stove for 15-20 minutes. There is no need to bring it to a boil.
Remove the pan from the stove, place in a colander, and allow the whey to drain.
The taste of the cottage cheese will depend on how long you have left the sour milk. If you feel that there is sourness in the finished product, it is better not to give it to your child, but to use it for baking. This cottage cheese tolerates heat treatment very well.

Helpful Tips:
do not heat milk in an enamel pan, it may burn and the taste of the cottage cheese will deteriorate;
To get an excellent result, choose natural village milk; if this is not possible, buy one with a short shelf life;
Whatever recipe you choose, do not boil the milk, otherwise the cottage cheese will turn out hard and tasteless.

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How to make homemade cheese

One of the simplest and fastest ways to prepare tender cottage cheese at home. You don’t need to wait for the milk to sour, you don’t need to use pepsin, or buy starter cultures. A little fresh milk, lemon juice, an hour of time - and the most delicate cottage cheese is ready.

Milk that has not been brought to a boil contains a lot of enzymes that help the digestive system cope with the digestion of foods. In addition, we recommend trying to make cottage cheese from goat milk. If you compare goat's and cow's milk, this is what you get: there is 6 times more cobalt in goat's milk than in regular cow's milk, and it is the main component of vitamin B12, which is responsible for important hematopoietic and metabolic processes in the body. Many times more potassium, higher quality protein and fats, which promises high nutritional value.

Goat's milk is low in lactose (milk sugar), which means it is easy to digest, does not cause stomach upset, and is ideal for people who are lactose intolerant but love dairy products. Milk is also valued for its high content of capric and linoleic, sialic acids, carotene, niacin, iron and magnesium.

How to make cottage cheese at home

Ingredients

1 liter of milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons lemon juice

Step 1

In a large saucepan, combine milk and salt. Bring the milk to almost a boil, but do not let it boil. Turn off the heat and add lemon juice and stir gently. The milk will begin to curdle into flakes. Stirring occasionally, let stand for 5-7 minutes. For extra creaminess, you can add 1 tablespoon of heavy cream at this stage.

Step 2

Line a bowl with gauze or a cotton towel and pour in the curd mixture. Carefully tie the edges and lift the tied “bag”. Place in a colander and let the whey drain. The more time the liquid drains, the denser and drier the ricotta will be. It takes 45-60 minutes to prepare tender cottage cheese.

Step 3

The whey obtained from cooking can be used instead of water in recipes for baking muffins, cookies, bread, and as a base for okroshka. Cottage cheese is eaten with berries and fruits, honey, nuts, salted with herbs, as a spread on toast, as an ingredient for cheesecakes and cottage cheese baking, gnoc.

The most delicious cottage cheese is obtained only from homemade milk with good fat content. It is very easy to independently regulate the level of humidity, friability, and softness of the cottage cheese, depending on personal preferences. In addition, you can be completely confident in its high quality. A by-product of production will be whey, which in itself is very beneficial for the body, and is also used in some dough recipes or as a base for okroshka instead of kvass. In this article we will tell you how to make cottage cheese from milk, how to choose the right milk, how to ferment it, how to work with curdled milk and how to get delicious homemade cottage cheese from sour milk.
The process of preparing cottage cheese, of course, takes a lot of time, but in fact at each stage you need to perform one or two simple manipulations, the rest will be done by lactic acid bacteria and time.
To prepare cottage cheese, we will use homemade fresh cow's milk of good quality, without any impurities or additives. If you don’t have the opportunity to buy homemade milk, then you can use store-bought milk, but you also need to choose it correctly, so store-bought milk for making cottage cheese:
milk should have a high fat content of 3.2%;
Milk should not contain preservatives or antibiotics; very often they are contained in milk with an extended shelf life.

Taste Info Dairy desserts

Ingredients

• gauze or linen/cotton towel

How to make cottage cheese from milk

Stage 1: Working with milk
First you need to evaluate the quality of the milk. If a layer of cream is clearly visible on the surface of the milk in a can or bottle, then the yield of cottage cheese will be greater.

Such milk must be poured into glass, clay or ceramic containers, where the souring process will take place.


Metal containers are not suitable! Place the jar of milk in a dark place for about two days, preferably closer to a heat source, for example, in a cabinet next to a working refrigerator or stove. In the refrigerator itself, the milk will not sour, but will only spoil! After a couple of days, you need to check the container, in which you can no longer see milk, but good country yogurt.
If you put milk to sour in an open sunny place, it can turn sour very quickly; you need to carefully monitor it, since milk peroxidizes very quickly in the sun.

Properly sour milk turns into a dense, thick mass that separates from the whey. This moment needs to be controlled, because Less acidified milk will produce less cottage cheese, and peroxidized milk will produce cottage cheese that is not as tasty; it will be more sour.


To make milk sour faster, you can add:
a piece of black bread;
a spoonful of sour cream or kefir;
lemon juice or citric acid.
Stage 2: Working with curdled milk
The curdled milk needs to be heated in a saucepan over low heat; I cook the cottage cheese on an electric stove and use the lowest heat possible. Can be heated in a water bath, i.e. Place a smaller saucepan with curdled milk in one larger saucepan.
In order to make cottage cheese, sour milk must be heated, and not brought to a boil, i.e. the temperature should be approximately 40 degrees.




During the cooking process, the easiest way to check the heating of the product is with your finger. If you feel a pleasant warmth and not a burning temperature, then everything is fine. The process lasts about 15-20 minutes. The longer the yogurt is heated, the harder the curd will be. It is advisable to constantly stir the yogurt, or rather, distribute the jelly-like mass throughout the entire volume of the product.


Large parts of sour milk are less heated, and cooking will be uneven.

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Stage 3: Working with cottage cheese
We practically talked about how to make cottage cheese from milk; essentially, after heating, the cottage cheese is ready. All that remains is to separate it from the whey. To do this, use a sieve and a clean kitchen towel or gauze folded in several layers. The sieve should be placed over a deep container and lined with a cloth.




After the curd mass is poured into such a structure, most of the whey is filtered into a bowl, and the curd itself remains inside the sieve on the cloth.




But such cottage cheese still contains a lot of whey, so it must be hung in the same towel for the final decantation of the liquid. Under the improvised bag of cottage cheese, of course, you need to place a plate or cup, where some more whey will accumulate.

In this form, the cottage cheese “hangs” for several hours. The longer the whey is expressed, the drier the curd becomes.
Wonderful, tender, healthy homemade cottage cheese made from milk is ready!

Content:

Cottage cheese is a perfect food product that combines all the beneficial properties of dairy products. High-quality cottage cheese provides the body with easily digestible protein, fats, vitamins, amino acids and minerals (calcium, potassium, phosphorus). It is useful for pregnant and lactating women, for young growing organisms, people with increased physical activity and the elderly.

Features of preparing cottage cheese

The modern method of preparing cottage cheese at home, which cannot be said about the industry, has not undergone any changes at all and is no different from the process that our ancestors used. Still, this nutritious fermented milk product is obtained from well-heated curdled milk (sour milk), placed in a linen bag to separate the dense part (cottage cheese) from the liquid part (whey).

Classic cottage cheese recipe at home

There is an ideal “long-term recipe” when the extraction of a valuable product goes on its own, without your direct intervention. The whole process is simple, and you can get cottage cheese from milk on the second or third day after its natural ripening, when under the influence of temperature factors the whey is separated from the curdled milk due to the action of living lactic acid bacteria.

To get 1 kg of cottage cheese, prepare:

• 3 liters of fresh, preferably homemade, milk;
• 2 spacious containers: one larger, the other smaller;
• colander;
• clean cotton paper cloth or thick gauze.

Instructions for making cottage cheese at home:

1. Pour the milk into a sealed container, do not disturb it, leave it to sour for a couple of days (the speed of fermentation will depend on temperature factors).
2. Afterwards, place the container with the fermented, already dense, mixture over low heat in a water bath. Cook, stirring gently, for 15-20 minutes until curds form.
3. As soon as the slightly heated mass separates into cottage cheese and whey, leave it alone until it cools completely.
4. Next, prepare a spacious dish, place a colander on it, which is covered with a thick, clean cotton cloth (a sieve is not suitable for such manipulation).
5. Pour the mixture onto the prepared cloth, tie it in a knot and hang it over the prepared container so that the separated whey can drain into it. As soon as the whey stops dripping, the cottage cheese is ready.

How to make cottage cheese quickly

If you don’t have time for 2-3 days, try making “instant” cottage cheese, where you can “play” with the final result of the taste of the product and its characteristics. You will get a solid consistency of cottage cheese when the curdled milk drains for a day; soft, tender cottage cheese is prepared almost immediately - by the usual mechanical squeezing of the whey by hand. The fat content and amount of the output product will depend on the fat content of the original ingredients.

To get 200 g of cottage cheese you will need the following ingredients:

• 500 ml milk;
• 500 ml kefir.

The cooking process looks like this:

1. Pour the milk into a container of sufficient capacity (at least 1.5 liters) and bring it to a boil.
2. As soon as the milk begins to boil, reduce the heat and immediately begin pouring kefir into the boiling liquid in a thin stream.
3. Then add a little heat and begin to slowly stir the mass.
4. When the process of coagulation (separation of whey from protein) begins, turn off the heat, cover the dish with a lid and leave the mixture alone for a while (the curdling process will still occur in the cooling workpiece).
5. Next, do everything as usual: throw the cooled mass onto thick gauze and, tying it in a knot, hang it to drain the whey.

The subtleties of making cottage cheese at home

You can make cottage cheese at home from either homemade whole milk or pasteurized store-bought milk. A product made from rural cow's milk will be fattier, more delicate in taste and cheaper in cost. Cottage cheese made from milk from the counter will be less fat, lighter, fine-grained, less tender and twice as expensive.

Whatever milk you initially choose for making cottage cheese, there are certain nuances, without knowledge of which you may end up with a low-quality product:

• Milk souring should be natural, without your intervention and under no circumstances in the refrigerator.
• When heating already sour milk, the main thing is not to overheat it, since if the curdled milk is exposed to excessive temperature, the curd will turn out to be fine-grained, and its taste will be hard and dry.
• If, on the contrary, you do not bring the semi-finished product to the required temperature while heating it in a water bath, you will end up with a rubber mass that tastes completely different from cottage cheese.
• The green color of the whey, which appears when sour milk is heated, indicates that the curdled milk has “ripened” sufficiently.

It is worth considering that the final mass of the prepared product will also differ: the yield of cottage cheese from three liters of homemade milk will be much greater (about 1 kg) than from the same amount of store-bought milk (600-700 g).

Types of cottage cheese

Like other fermented milk products, cottage cheese is usually classified according to production technology. With this product, this is done according to the method of preparation (separate and traditional) and according to fat content.

What kind of cottage cheese is there?

Based on fat content, cottage cheese is divided into:

• low fat (% fat up to 1.8);
• low-fat (fat content less than 3%);
• bold (9%);
• classic (from 4-18%);
• fatty (% fat content not less than 18).

The traditional method of preparing cottage cheese is acidic (prepared on the basis of skim milk using a starter) and acid-rennet (pasteurized milk is used, in this case the starter is supplemented with the enzyme pepsin).

With the separate method, grain-free skim cottage cheese is obtained, which is prepared from separated skim milk. Using this method, by adding cream, you can get cottage cheese of any fat content.

Making cottage cheese from milk

At home, all the specifics and technology for preparing cottage cheese from milk are the same and simple. The milk is pasteurized, cooled and seasoned with starter (kefir, sour cream, yogurt, fermented baked milk). Standard proportions: 3-4 tablespoons of starter are used for 1 liter of milk.

The prepared mixture is mixed and placed in a warm place for 8-10 hours. Afterwards, the curd curd is separated from the whey. The finished cottage cheese can be flavored with sour cream, if you want to get a product with more calories, cream or fruit.

Homemade kefir cottage cheese

Cottage cheese made from kefir will have a delicate, soft consistency, but have a sour taste. It would be good to use such cottage cheese for preparing a variety of cottage cheese products or as an independent dish with the addition of fruit or sweet jam. The preparation of cottage cheese from kefir is similar to the process of obtaining it from milk: kefir can be heat treated, after which the curd is separated from the whey.

An interesting recipe for making cottage cheese from frozen kefir is considered: place a lump of sour milk frozen in the freezer at room temperature in a fabric bag. A few hours later, after the process of separating the liquid part from the solid part is completed, you will receive the long-awaited delicious product.

How to make low-fat cottage cheese at home

Cottage cheese made from skim milk is a dietary and at the same time complete energy product containing all useful substances. Low-fat cottage cheese is ideal for consumption by people on a fat-restricted diet; 100 g of this product contains less than 1.8% fat.

Pasteurized low-fat or one percent milk is used for this process. The entire preparation procedure is similar to producing cottage cheese from regular milk, the only difference is that the fermentation of such a product naturally will take much longer, so to speed up the process, starters in the form of low-fat yogurt or kefir are used. To sour one liter of milk you will need 2-3 tbsp. l. sourdough

How to make grainy cottage cheese

A variety of ordinary cottage cheese - granular cottage cheese - is a dietary low-calorie food that has no contraindications. It is prepared from skim pasteurized milk using a special starter - calcium chloride. The special flavor of this product is achieved by saturating low-fat curd grains with milk cream and salt.

To make this cottage cheese at home, you will need the following products:

• 1 liter of low-fat milk;
• 1.5 tbsp. l. calcium chloride;
• 6 tbsp. l. cream (the fat content of the prepared cottage cheese will depend on the initial % fat content of the cream);
• salt to taste.

The cooking process is quick and simple:

1. In a non-enamel container, heat the milk well, almost bringing it to a boil.
2. Then, turning off the heat, add calcium chloride and mix thoroughly.
3. The composition must stand for a while so that the curd grains separate from the liquid.
4. Separate the curds from the whey.
5. Salt the already dry product and add cream. Homemade granular cottage cheese is ready.

Making cheese from cottage cheese

You can try making another healthy and nutritious dairy product yourself - cottage cheese.

To do this you will need the following products:

• 200 g homemade fat cottage cheese;
• 200 ml milk;
• a mixture of one egg and 50 g of butter;
• 0.5 tsp. soda;
• salt, spices to taste.

Homemade cheese is prepared like this:

1. Place homemade cottage cheese (it is better if it is grainy, with a low whey content) in a bowl, pour milk over it and bring the whole mixture to a boil.
2. Once boiling, reduce the heat, stirring gently, making sure that the entire contents of the pan are heated evenly.
3. As soon as the whey separates from the bowl, discard the resulting lump of curd in a colander or thick layer of gauze.
4. Transfer the dry curd mass into a casserole, in which you will then cook the cheese.
5. Add a mixture of butter, eggs, soda and salt to the semi-finished product. Stir.
6. Next, cook the whole mass over low heat for 5-8 minutes, stirring constantly.
7. It is easy to determine the readiness of the cheese: it will stretch, become sticky, viscous and begin to lag behind the walls of the cauldron.
8. Pour the hot cheese into the prepared form and leave to harden.

How to make cottage cheese at home - watch the video:

After making homemade cottage cheese, you will be left with a useful product - whey, which can be used both in cooking for preparing various baked goods, and in home cosmetology.

To make the process more understandable, we have prepared a step-by-step recipe with photos. You can safely add any of the proposed options to your culinary repertoire, and pamper your family with natural cottage cheese, both in its pure form and with various additives. It is prepared from milk, kefir, yogurt and other dairy products.

Heat treatment will take place at not too high temperatures. As a rule, the technology uses a water bath. To do this, place the pan with raw materials in a bowl of water. At high processing temperatures and increasing the duration of the process, the cottage cheese deteriorates its quality. It becomes hard and dry.

For cooking you will need the following utensils:

• Glass jar;
• 2 pans of different diameters;
• Colander or sieve.

Also, prepare a piece of natural fabric or gauze folded in several layers.

Before straining, wet the cloth (gauze) with boiled water and squeeze it out, and then nothing will stick to it.

To make homemade cottage cheese, take milk from the cow or store-bought milk. In the first case, the yield is greater, the product is fattier, and from store-bought pasteurized milk it is softer and more tender.

When buying raw materials in a store, choose milk with a short shelf life and a fat content of at least 3.6%.

A by-product of making homemade cottage cheese is whey. It has nutritional value in itself, and also works well as a base for dough. So don’t throw it away, but use it to make pies and okroshka.

How to make cottage cheese at home from homemade and store-bought milk: step-by-step recipe

Cottage cheese is a fermented milk product, it is obtained from sour milk, so the first stage of preparation is ripening. For this reason, long-term storage milk is not suitable; it simply will not sour. We take it in polyethylene (which, by the way, is cheaper). Be sure to look at the date of manufacture - only fresh milk is suitable for us.

On a note

You can skim the cream from farm milk, but if you want to cook full-fat cottage cheese, you don’t need to do this.

Step-by-step preparation:

We talked about how to properly prepare delicious coarse-grained cottage cheese at home from whole sour milk, and provided a step-by-step recipe, but you can do without a water bath. The pan with curdled milk is simply placed on low heat and warmed up. Be sure to be careful not to burn. After curdling, proceed as described above.

From kefir: fresh and frozen

You can quickly make cottage cheese from kefir. The yield will be less than from yogurt, but the taste is no worse. We skip the ripening stage and immediately place the container with kefir in a water bath. Don't forget to stir. The remaining whey can also be used, for example, to make pancakes or crumpets with it.

The heating temperature of kefir should not exceed 60°C, otherwise the cottage cheese will turn out hard.

A glass jar is perfect for making homemade kefir cottage cheese in a water bath, just don’t forget to put a towel on the bottom of the pan so that it doesn’t burst when heated. The process will be similar to sterilizing canned food, with the difference that you do not need to bring it to a boil. The jar is convenient because there is no need to stir the mixture, and readiness can be easily monitored by the separation of the whey from the curdled mass. It is very visible through the glass.

A completely different technology is used for cottage cheese from frozen kefir. In this case, no heat treatment is carried out.

Cooking steps:

1. Place a pack of kefir in the freezer.
2. After it freezes, remove it from the freezer and remove the packaging.
3. Place the frozen kefir in a colander lined with a damp cloth or gauze folded in 2-3 layers. Place a colander over a bowl or pan.
4. Leave to defrost at room temperature for at least 5 hours. The time depends on the air temperature.
5. When all the ice has thawed, strain out the remaining mixture on the gauze and transfer it to a glass or plastic container.

Cottage cheese from pre-frozen kefir is dietary, tender and soft, without grains. The consistency is similar to cream. The taste depends on the quality of the original product.

If the room is cool, the defrosting process may take up to 10 hours. It is convenient to put the bag in the freezer in the evening, and in the morning put kefir ice on cheesecloth. Then fresh homemade cottage cheese will be ready for dinner.

In a slow cooker: with sour cream and sourdough

In a slow cooker, cottage cheese is prepared from kefir, fermented baked milk or sour cow's or goat's milk. If you have fresh milk and sour cream, then with the help of a miracle saucepan you can also make a tasty product, only it will take more time, the process will take about 12 hours, and possibly longer.

We will need such products;

• Milk – 10 glasses;
• Sour cream – ½ cup.

Preparation:

1. Pour milk into the multicooker bowl.
2. Add sour cream, stir. To make this easier, dilute the sour cream in a small amount of milk, and then pour the liquid mixture into a bowl.
3. Set the “Warming” mode and leave for half an hour.
4. After 2 hours, turn on the heating again, but for 15 minutes.
5. It is more convenient to leave the cottage cheese overnight, then in the morning the yogurt will be ready.
6. To curdle at the final stage, turn on the multicooker in the “Warming” mode for 1 hour.
7. Now all that remains is to pour the thick mass onto cheesecloth. First fold it several times and place it in a colander, and place it over the pan.
8. Wait until all the whey has drained.
9. Do not try to speed up the process by stirring the mixture with a spoon. Leave it alone, or, as a last resort, pull up the edges of the gauze alternately on all sides.
10. As usual, transfer the finished cottage cheese into a suitable container and place it in the refrigerator.

Instead of sour cream, you can use any fermented milk product: kefir, fermented baked milk, yogurt.

With special starter cultures, you can prepare a tasty and healthy fermented milk product in 8 hours. Excellent results are obtained with BakZdrav starter. The instructions included with it are very detailed. In a slow cooker this is done like this:

1. Pour the starter into the cooled boiled milk and stir.
2. Pour the mixture into the multicooker bowl, turn on the “Yoghurt” mode. If it is not there, then set the temperature to 35-40°C and leave for 8 hours.
3. Using a spatula, cut the dense layer directly in the bowl into rectangles with a side of 2 cm (do not stir, just pick), set the temperature to 60°C, cook for 15 minutes.
4. Strain through cheesecloth and cool.

Place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, after which you can serve. Children really like this cottage cheese. It can be stored in the refrigerator for no more than 3 days. If you add berries, fruits or raisins to it and pour syrup over it, you will get a wonderful dessert.

Homemade cottage cheese with calcium chloride

If you need to increase the calcium content, then use the pharmaceutical preparation calcium chloride 10%. It is sold in ampoules and bottles. Take precautions when using the ampoule.

To prevent glass from accidentally getting into the product, draw the drug with a syringe and a needle.

• Milk – 300 ml;
• Calcium chloride – 1 tsp.

How to cook:

1. Boil milk
2. Add calcium chloride, after which the milk will begin to curdle.
3. Place on cheesecloth and strain.

This technology achieves two goals. Firstly, the preparation is very fast, no preparatory measures are required. Secondly, cottage cheese is enriched with calcium, which is necessary for the normal functioning of the body.

Calcified cottage cheese is often prescribed to children; it is useful for older people as a preventive measure for osteoporosis.

We have given several options on how to prepare cottage cheese at home. This can be done quickly using calcium chloride or without heat treatment by freezing and then thawing kefir. A very tasty and tender cottage cheese is made in a slow cooker. There is also a classic method that our grandmothers used. In each case, the consistency will be different, and the taste will also be different, so you need to try and choose what your family likes.