There's nothing that compares with fresh Homemade Mozzarella Cheese! You can have the stretchiest mozzarella cheese ready for pizzas and more in about 30 minutes with this recipe! It's a quick mozzarella recipe thanks to citric acid which eliminates the need for the traditional acidifying process which can take all day. Be sure to check out my video tutorial so you can how easily you can make cheese at home!
Though this Homemade Mozzarella Cheese recipe uses one gallon of milk, I'll admit I never make just a gallon worth. It's worth your time to make a bigger batch if you have access to good milk! Jersey cow milk will give you a better yield than Holstein due to high milk fat and proteins. I get a fat pound from Jersey milk, you'll get a scant pound from Holstein or store-bought milk per gallon of milk. You can always freeze the extra cheese!
You'll find it doesn't behave quite like you are used to with mozzarella, after all, this is a far superior product! But the taste and freshness will be worth it as you learn to adapt how you use it. If it won't shred well, its either still warm and try popping it in the freezer for a bit. Or I find when a cheese was really well stretched it does shred better. You can always slice rounds and lay those on your pizza or lasagna as that also looks impressive.
Homemade Mozzarella
Ingredients
- 1 gallon whole milk (4 litres) raw or pasteurized, NOT ultra-pasteurized
- 1 ½ teaspoon citric acid dissolved in ¼ c cool water (Find it at the grocery store or online here
- ¼ teaspoon liquid rennet 300 IMU strength. This is a strong rennet, bought here. Check your bottle of rennet for what the rate of use is per gallon and go with that if it is different than this.
- ⅓ cup salt
Instructions
- Heat milk on medium heat to 55F.
- Add citric acid stirring in up and down motions.
- Heat milk to 88F. Add rennet stirring in same way.
- Heat to 100F. Turn off heat and move pot off heat.
- Allow it to sit for 5 minutes, then scoop the curds out into a strainer overtop of a bowl or pot to catch the whey. Divide into baseball sized chunks.
- Meanwhile, heat up 4 litres of whey with ⅓ cup salt until its stinking hot but not boiling then take off heat.
- Drop 2 balls of mozzarella into the hot whey and let them sit 30 seconds. This next part is going to be more about feel vs time. Scoop a ball out with a spoon and to do a bit of a reverse bread knead holding the cheese in your gloved hands. The outside will be shiny and the inside will still be curds.
- When it won't stretch, put it back into the hot whey for 30-60 seconds. Bounce back and forth between the two balls.
- When all of the ball is no longer curds, you're going to stretch it! Pull the cheese as far as you can until it starts to break, then fold it in half and stretch again until it starts to break. Then roll it back up into a ball, pop back into the whey. You want a few good stretches like this from each ball, the cheese should be glossy and smooth.
- Drop the finished ball into a bowl of ice water or put in the fridge. Ice water will make it keep its shape.
Video
Notes
- Homemade Mozzarella Cheese keeps in the fridge for a few days, or throw it into the freezer. You can freeze it as a ball or you can shred it and freeze that way.
Nutrition
Delicious Dairy
Swimming in milk? Try some of these other dairy recipes.
Milkmaid Mandi
Hi there. I have a family milk cow, too, that I write a blog about. This post caught my eye, because I just posted a similar one yesterday about mozzarella. Our methods are about the same. I hadn't thought of doubling the recipe though. Good idea! In case you want to check my site out: http://www.memoirsofamilkmaid.com
katehosie
Oh yes we always double, if not much more, the mozzarellas recipe!
Christine
When you store your mozzarella in the fridge, do you wrap it or just leave it open to the air? I've tried it both ways and not 100% sure I like either way.
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It's always stored in a plastic bag.
HealthyLivingwithChristene
This is a very easy recipe however, my rennet is vegetable base and I still struggle to get it stretchy. If I can just get animal rennet I think it would work better for me.
Melinda
Kate makes mozzarella cheese so easy! I've made mozzarella multiple times following her instructions. It's so good!
Sarah
Thank you for this recipe and making it easy to scale up for multiple gallons! Also the relaxed guidelines make it so easy to follow. I made this last weekend with 3 gallons after skimming the cream for butter and it worked beautifully! The cheese didn’t want to grate but shredded easily by hand 🙂
Andrea
Hi,
Do you sell rennet and citric acid like your mozzarella recipe calls for? The recipe says "buy here" but I don't see those products in your online shop. Or was there supposed to be a link to where to buy them perhaps? Thanks in advance for your help.
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This is where I get the rennet from: https://glengarrycheesemaking.on.ca/
This is the amazon link where I buy the citric acid: https://amzn.to/3C9cZab
Kim
Thanks for sharing the recipe. I tried to make it, (and followed the directions exactly) but I was not able to get the curds to stretch. Any suggestions?
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Sounds like your ph is off. Trying lowering or raising using citric acid. There are other factors like how long the milk sat before making the cheese. The ph changes the longer it sits.
Elizabeth
I finally worked up the courage to make cheese especially because raw milk is expensive. Well the only thing Kate forgot to add was to double check your thermometer to make sure it's set to Fahrenheit not Celsius. ????? Just kidding . That was allllll user error....and to make it worse, im from America. We never use Celsius. Anyway....im excited to try this again....whenever I work up the courage. ?
Elizabeth
I finally worked up the courage to make cheese especially because raw milk is expensive. Well the only thing Kate forgot to add was to double check your thermometer to make sure it's set to Fahrenheit not Celsius. ????? Just kidding . That was allllll user error....and to make it worse, im from America. We never use Celsius. Anyway....im excited to try this again....whenever I work up the courage. ?
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I think you can do it, that first batch was just a run-through!
Kim
Curious- has anyone tried making this recipe but then making string cheese vs a ball?
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Yes, we've made string cheese. Not often though.