Fresh Homemade Mozzarella Cheese – $1.26 (per ball)

Recently, I stumbled on a recipe for mozzarella cheese. I mail-ordered some of the ingredients and planned to spend a relaxing few hours learning the art of mozzarella cheese making as I house-sat for a friend.

What I didn’t realize, until half-way through following this recipe, was that this very reputable blog writer had failed to explain some very important details. I made 2 batches that night and basically ruined both of them. At the end, it tasted delicious, but I hesitated to make it again because of the sheer frustration in the lack of detail about the recipe.

This is the third time I’ve made mozzarella, and I recorded it this time. I wrote down all of the important details that I wish the other chef had told me.

This is a fun, simple, delicious, kid-friendly project, so please don’t be intimidated. 

However, you’ve got to follow the instructions pretty closely. That’s hard for anti-recipe people like me, but consider it a character-building activity.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Ingredients

• 1 Gallon Whole Unpasteurized Milk or Raw Milk – $5.25
• 1/2 Cup Unpasteurized Heavy Cream or Half & Half – $.59
• 1 1/2 Teaspoons Citric Acid (buy here) – $.12
• 1/8 Teaspoon Vegetable Rennet (buy here) – $.35
• 3 Tablespoons Salt

Equipment

• Butter Muslin (buy here) (You may be able to triple-up on cheese cloth if you’re desperate)
• Thermometer
• Thick Kitchen Gloves
• Large Pot, Strainer, and Large Bowl

Why unpasteurized milk? Like cheesemaking.com says, pasteurized milk “has basically been stripped of friendly bacteria. More importantly, the alteration of the proteins is so severe that the milk will not form a proper curd.” Whole Foods and Earthfare are just a few places you can find it–although it may say “Flash pasteurized whole milk” which is okay if you can’t find it totally raw. Just make sure it’s not your run-of-the-mill ultra-pasteurized milk. Sorry, I know’s that’s inconvenient.

Lay out all your equipment on the counter before you start…a sort of Mise en Place (putting everything in its place).

Pour the gallon of unpasteurized milk and unpasteurized cream in a big pot and keep the heat off. Measure out your citric acid.

While the heat is still off (you didn’t disobey me, did you? Keep that heat off!), pour in the citric acid and stir for 60 seconds. Time it or count to yourself if you have to. This is really important–60 seconds. 

Turn the heat on medium-low. Not high or even medium high. We’re going to raise the temperature to exactly 90* and we must do it slowly. I was impatient the first two times and ruined it. Loooow and sloooow. 90* is pretty much lukewarm, so it will only take about 8-10 minutes.

While the milk is sloooowly coming up to temp, dilute 1/8 teaspoon of the rennet into about 1/4 cup cool water.

When the milk has reached 90*, take it off of the heat. Pour in the vegetable rennet and stir.

Stir for 90 seconds, go! 

Now, after you’ve stirred, put a lid on the cheese and leave it alone for 20 minutes. Don’t poke it, don’t move it, just walk away. If that’s hard for you, you could Draw a Stickman for a while.

After your 20 minutes, open the lid and poke the cheese. Is it semi-solid, kinda like sour cream? If it’s still very liquidy, let it sit for another few minutes. There may have been a temperature problem.

If it’s sour-cream-y, take a knife and cut 1″ blocks. 

Now we’re going to put the pot back on the stove on medium heat and heat it up to 105*. Remember, low and slow.

While that’s doing its thing, cut a piece of butter muslin and line a drainer with it. I doubled mine up, and I realized that was unnecessary. Just one layer is good.

This is important! Put a bowl underneath the drainer! You NEED the liquid, which is the whey, for later.

Once the temperature hits 105* exactly, pull it off the heat and place it next to your sink.

Carefully, very, very carefully, pick up the cheese blocks with a slotted spoon and place it in the drainer.

Come on, that’s sexy.

Oh yeah.

After you’ve carefully added the curds to the drainer, just let it sit for a minute.

You didn’t forget your bowl, did you?

See all the whitey bits in the whey? Those have to come out too or it’ll ruin the whey when you heat it back up, so pour that through the strainer as well.

Now, carefully, carefully, carefully, push on the cheese so the liquid drains out. Don’t push too hard!

You may have to empty they whey from the bowl a few times while it’s draining.

Just dump the liquid back into the pot.

I took the edges of the butter muslin and gently squeezed to get the remaining liquid out.

You should be left with a blob like this and it shouldn’t fall apart when you pick it up. If it falls apart, you may just need to drain more liquid.

Place it on a cutting board with the drainage wells on the side to catch the liquid that will continue to run off.

Cut the blob into 1″ blocks.

Place them in a heat-safe bowl.

This is important! Don’t forget the salt! I under-salted mine. Pour about 3-4 tablespoons of salt into the liquid.

Now we’re going to bring the temperature of the whey up to 180*. Because I was paranoid about over-heating the liquid, I just stirred with my floating thermometer and watched it carefully.

While that’s heating, get another bowl full of cool water.

And go ahead and put your gloves on. When it reaches 180*, take it off the heat immediately.

Now, carefully pour the hot liquid in the bowl of curds.

Make sure you have enough to cover the curds, and keep that hot whey handy if you need it in a minute.

Using a few rubber spatulas, spoons, or your glove-covered hands if you’re hardcore like I am, and start kneading the cheese.

This liquid is seriously hot and you will probably regret diving in with your tender hands like I do every time I make it. But I still prefer hands-on over some dumb spatula.

By this time, my roommate and I were oooo’ing and ahhh’ing.

Aaaand by this time we were yelling and laughing. Making food from scratch is about the experience too!

Before making this, I had never known exactly how to do this part of the process. But somehow, it came pretty naturally. Insert dirty joke here.

Just keep working with it till it looks like this. If you’re not sure it’s working, or if it’s not soft enough to work with, just put it back into the water while you pull yourself together. Don’t panic.

Now, just pinch off the bottom part and voila, you’ve got yourself a mozzarella ball!

Before it turns into a glove-imprinted blob, drop it in cool water to let it set.

Feel free to try it immediately (recommended).

Or, wrap them up in plastic wrap. Not an old plastic grocery bag like I did. The only time you run out of plastic wrap is when you need it the most, eh?

Here’s what I made for lunch immediately after wrapping them up. Recipe to follow.

• 1 Gallon Whole, Unpasteurized and/or Raw Milk – $5.25
• 1/2 Cup Heavy Cream or Half & Half – $.59
• 1 1/2 Teaspoons Citric Acid (buy here) – $.12
• 1/8 Teaspoon Vegetable Rennet (buy here) – $.35
• Total recipe cost: $6.31

For 1 Mozzarella ball? $1.26, baby!

Most fresh mozzarella balls are about $5.99 each, and this recipe makes about 5 mozzarella balls! $30 worth of cheese for $6! Come on now, that’s pretty sweet.