You can only be the objective Resident Taste Test Witch-Slash-Shepherd for so many months before you start casting spells on the testers. Back in February, I wondered aloud on Slack: “What’s going on with cottage cheese lately? Are you all also noticing it’s kinda off now?” Et voila. In April, after months of unserious discussion with coworkers about needing quicker, heartier snack options on site…boom. And finally:
Serious Eats / Tess Koman
Nefarious!
…Also, I just love cottage cheese! It’s easy, it’s delicious, I can slop it on my toddler’s plate at any time of day with berries or cinnamon and she’s happy—the trifecta! And so I recently pulled together six brands of full-fat cottage cheese you’re likely to find in your local supermarket, and forced the SE team to methodically, empirically, scientifically! taste their way through them all in a quest to identify the very best. And we loved every minute of doing it! No, I’m not even kidding. They did! The spell worked, etc., etc. Read on for our favorites.
The Contenders
- Breakstone’s Cottage Cheese, 4% Milkfat
- Daisy Pure & Natural Cottage Cheese, 4% Milkfat Minimum
- Friendship Cottage Cheese, 4% Milkfat, California-Style
- Good Culture Cottage Cheese, 4% Milkfat, Organic, Whole Milk Classic
- Hood Cottage Cheese, 4% Milkfat, Country-Style
- Lactaid Cottage Cheese, 4% Milkfat Min
Serious Eats / Jordan Provost
The Criteria
A good cottage cheese is a little bit sweet, a little more-than-a-bit salty, full of fresh dairy flavor, and leaves you with significant tang, without tasting sour. There should be firm yet creamy curds (not chalky!) and there should be just enough of the creamy liquid surrounding the curds—which is commonly referred to as dressing—to contribute to a pleasant overall sense of creaminess, but not so much that if your bowl were to tip over, you’d have to use any form of absorbent to clean it up.
Above all, a good cottage cheese squeaks. It doesn’t squeak a lot, oh my god. It squeaks gently, nimbly—a sneakers-on-a-floor-mopped-12-hours-ago squeak per bite. Medium-size curds accommodate such a squeak! Small ones melt away; large ones provide too much cushion. Goldilocks squeaks = Goldilocks cheese.
We opted for a 4% milkfat (aka “full fat”) experience across the board so as to allow the full extent of creaminess to come through. I mixed everything once over when it was fresh out of the fridge, plopped large scoops of each one into bowls, and let ‘em rip. Testers sampled each cottage cheese on its own, with no added flavorings and nothing to transfer it into their mouths but spoons.
Serious Eats / Jordon Provost
The Rankings
Good Culture Cottage Cheese, 4% Milkfat, Organic, Whole Milk Classic, 4/5
Imagine participating in a cottage cheese taste test. Then imagine volunteering to eat more cottage cheese. It’d have to be really good stuff! This stuff is! And Megan did just that, noting on her test sheet that after the tests were complete, she kept returning to the bowl for more scoops! In fact, nobody had anything bad to say about this sample. (OK, Genevieve had one mildly bad thing to say about it—she found it a “little heavy on the milk,” but that was actually a selling point for other tasters.) Indeed, everyone (Genevieve included) noted the dairy-rich flavor, a slight and pleasant tang, and a good hit of salt with each bite. There was just enough dressing to coat the curds and not a drop more.
Hood Cottage Cheese, 4% Milkfat, Country-Style, 3.4/5
Kelli, who, again, for some weird reason, had to eat a lot of cottage cheese for work one time on a different cottage curd-centric undertaking, declared this option to be “sweet, but not too sweet.” Daniel, who ultimately called this his favorite option, wrote that it had a “good creamy texture with soft curds that aren’t too soft.” All good notes on sweetness and creaminess from the group, though Kelli came full-circle to note: “The squeak!” Generally, “the squeak!” is not typically a fun way to describe an auditory or sensory experience you’ve just come through, so do with that what you will.
Daisy Pure & Natural Cottage Cheese, 4% Milkfat Minimum, 3/5
I wish I could’ve bottled the gasp I gasped upon opening this container. It was healing to come face-to-face with these curds. It looked like an edible version of a winning game of Tetris, but one where all the pieces were immaculate, snow-white squares. PRISTINE. “It’s creamy but doesn’t taste like old milk, which is nice,” wrote Genevieve. High praise, indeed, from this infrequent cottage cheese eater. Others enjoyed the tang. We did blow by “the squeak!” into “the bounce,” however, and while edible games of yore and bouncy castles might sound appealing to some, others who like less chew whilst eating cheese might prefer a different option on this list.
Lactaid Cottage Cheese, 4% Milkfat Min, 2.9/5
“Sweeeeeet,” “surprisingly sweet,” “quite sweet,” “sooo sweet,” and “no tang!” But also: “Good curd-to-liquid ratio,” “pretty nice to eat,” and “the texture is pleasant with curds of differing sizes,” followed by “the dressing is creamy and light!” Everyone claimed after the fact that they just kneeew they had been eating Lactaid. I’m sure!
Friendship Cottage Cheese, 4% Milkfat, California-Style, 2.9/5
This option—the one I grew up with!—was lightyears, well, lighter than every other option on the table. It was so aerated there was no question of it being overly dressed, nor was there any kind of heft to it, curd-wise. Like spooning out a baby made by the sweet union of cotton candy and whipped cream cheese partners, really! Our photographer Jordan wrote: “This had my favorite consistency and I was excited to taste it,” but that the cheese ultimately tasted like it would have benefited from culturing a bit longer. If mildness is your thing, this could be the cottage cheese for you.
Breakstone’s Cottage Cheese, 4% Milkfat, 2.1/5
My notes upon opening the container read: “It’s giving ricotta at first open. Soft! and! loose!” Breakstone’s did, in fact, taste wildly creamy and pleasantly sweet to most everyone, but it also swam in enough dressing to drown a curd or two or three hundred. “Really thick, not a lot of curds,” one of our testers wrote in a more helpful summation. “There are a few curds suspended in a yogurt-like substance.” A chewable option, this was not!
Serious Eats / Jordan Provost
Our Testing Methodology
All taste tests are conducted completely anonymously and without discussion. Tasters taste samples in random order. For example, taster A may taste sample 1 first, while taster B will taste sample 6 first. This is to prevent palate fatigue from unfairly giving any one sample an advantage. Tasters are asked to fill out tasting sheets ranking the samples for various criteria that vary from sample to sample and also to give an overall score. All data is tabulated and results are calculated with no editorial input in order to give us the most impartial representation of actual results possible.
