Cottage cheese is enjoying a big trendy comeback
- Scott Daniels: We Ate Well and Cheaply
- March 21, 2024
- 582
Believe it or not, the food that is getting plenty of attention and enjoying a big trendy revival is that humble staple, cottage cheese. You may feel out of the loop, but cottage cheese has been shunned and off the menu for several years, a result of young eaters winning the battle over avoiding it due to “a texture thing.”
It was a big diet food beginning in the 1950s, presented as a side salad with a plop of canned fruit on top and nestled into a leaf of iceberg lettuce. It remained a standard weight-watching staple well into the 1970s. Here’s something to remember when you’re a contestant on Jeopardy: After Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, he ate a plate of cottage cheese and fruit before heading out of the White House doors for the last time. A decade later cottage cheese was still the go-to food for dieting, riding the wave along with jazzercise and leg warmers.
Somewhere in that decade, cottage cheese began losing ground to yogurt, which was easier to pack in a lunch in a single serving. Yogurt also is much easier to produce than cottage cheese, which requires some fussing. It’s easy to blame the millennial generation for killing such a popular dairy food, but the truth is it was on its way out in a steady decline among most everyone but gramma. By the ‘90s it was out of favor completely.
It is hard to overstate how influential social media can be in pushing or killing anything you might care to imagine. I learned this in a brutal way this year when my auto insurance premiums doubled over the previous year. It turns out someone created a video demonstrating just how easily a certain brand of car can be stolen, and that was all it took. One of our cars is that easily swiped brand and is now an insurance pariah. All it took was a single video.
Back to cottage cheese. Also last year, videos began to turn up, created by Generation Z netizens, of whipped cottage cheese being used as a dip for raw vegetables. It caught on very quickly, clearing grocery store shelves, especially when people began to rediscover how protein-packed this one-time diet favorite really is. A half cup serving provides 14 grams of protein delivered in a relatively lean package. It’s also good for promoting a healthy gut biome, is rich in calcium and phosphorous, and brings B vitamins and potassium to your healthy diet. There are plenty of reasons to love cottage cheese, and you can get around the texture thing if it’s a problem for you.
My favorite way to enjoy cottage cheese probably negates the health benefits somewhat. While it’s good with just a little salt and pepper, I like to eat it with a dollop of apple butter on the side, making for a good dessert alternative.
Cottage cheese is made by heating milk and adding animal rennet. Over a few hours, the milk becomes a custard-like curd, which is broken up and cooled. Buttermilk and cream are added at the end after straining, and there you have it. If you want to try and make it at home, Bon Appetite Magazine offers a recipe on its website. The hardest part of making your own is sourcing milk of sufficient quality that has not been ultra-pasteurized.
If you aren’t digging those curds, you can enjoy all the healthy benefits of cottage cheese by whipping it. Get high-quality, full-fat cottage cheese and whiz it up in the food processor until it’s a smooth, fluffy, marshmallow-like consistency. For a bit more flavor, add a couple teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil while the machine is running.
The end product can be spread on toast with hot honey, spread on a platter and topped with roasted vegetables, or eaten plain, like yogurt.
It’s time to welcome cottage cheese back to meals and snacking. It has certainly earned its place.