Is it possible to freeze homemade cottage cheese? Is it possible to freeze cottage cheese in the freezer?

How long can cottage cheese be stored in the freezer and is it worth freezing this nutritious and calcium-rich product at all? When there is no way to consume it in the next few days, there is no other choice but to put it in the freezer.

The shelf life of frozen cottage cheese will depend on how correctly you prepare the product for long-term exposure to sub-zero temperatures, as well as some other factors.

Why is it not advisable to freeze?

Cottage cheese is a very delicate “living” product with a pleasant milky taste, delicate aroma and dense creamy texture of the grains. Alas, all this splendor will be largely lost if you decide to use the freezer for storage. You will also have to say goodbye to about a third of the nutrients that fresh cottage cheese is rich in.

The longer you keep the product frozen, the smaller quantity valuable microelements and vitamins will remain in it. With minimal loss in quality, cottage cheese is stored after quick freezing; in this case it is allowed to use it in pure form even for children.

I would like to immediately answer the question of whether it is possible to freeze cottage cheese in factory packaging: you should not do this. In foil, its texture will suffer too much, and in a plastic bag the curd will acquire an unappetizing gray tint and a musty smell.

Not all dairy products are so critical of freezing, e.g. butter traditionally stored by many housewives in the freezer for a long time, however, even without it, you can read in the special article at the link.

Deadlines

How long cottage cheese is stored in the freezer depends, first of all, on the temperature in the chamber:

at -2 °C it is possible to save the product for a week in advance;
from -12 to -18 °C, cottage cheese can sit without spoiling for two weeks;
at -25 °C freshness is maintained for 20 days;
in deep freezing (-35 °C) the workpiece will “live” for up to a month.

Note: high-fat cottage cheese can be stored in the freezer with minimal loss of consistency quality, while its dietary counterpart becomes very crumbly and dry.

It is still important to remember which product you purchased in order to avoid freezing and subsequent use of an already stale product.

Freezing technology

Now that the question of whether it is possible to store cottage cheese in the freezer if necessary has been resolved, it’s time to move on to practical recommendations. Procedure:

If there is a lot of product, divide it into portions so that each curd piece is completely used after thawing.
Crumble the white lumps so that they “set” faster and thaw in the future.
To store cottage cheese in the freezer, it is better to use glass or ceramic containers with a tight lid; Do not fill it to the very top, because the moisture will increase in volume during freezing.
Label the packaging so you don't miss the expiration date.

Note: granular cottage cheese is better suited for storage in the freezer than pasty cottage cheese.

Defrosting

No matter how long the curd lies in the freezer - a couple of days or weeks, the reverse process will take quite a long time. To return cottage cheese from a frozen state to its original state, you need to do the following:

move the package from the freezer to the refrigerator shelf and leave for 10-12 hours,
After this time, make sure that the product has thawed completely and strain the separated whey through gauze.

Now you can use it for its intended purpose.

Attention: under no circumstances should you use heat to speed up the defrosting process; even room temperature will lead to spoilage of the product.

Freezing semi-finished curd products

Sticking dumplings, cheesecakes, dumplings, wrapping the sweet curd filling in pancakes, and then quickly freezing it all is an excellent alternative to store-bought semi-finished products. There will always be a preparation at hand for a quick breakfast or treating unexpected guests.

Important: such stocks do not need to be defrosted; they can be fried or boiled immediately. IN otherwise the result will not please you: the curd dough will become loose and fall apart, and the filling will spread.

Terms and temperature conditions for storing dough and sour dough products dairy product correspond to those indicated above. Consuming spoiled dairy products can lead to serious food poisoning.

Signs of damage

If a slippery and sticky liquid has formed on the surface, an unpleasant musty or sour smell has arisen, and a bitter taste has appeared in the taste, it means that the cottage cheese is no longer suitable for consumption in any form.

Fresh fermented milk products are highly perishable, so it is important to find out and remember their shelf life once. Along with cottage cheese, kefir most often has to be thrown away due to spoilage. If you know, then you can approach the purchases of this product more wisely and have time to consume them fresh, and not closer to the end of the condition.

Fresh high-quality cottage cheese is a concentrate of all useful properties milk, a natural source of complete milk protein, which has no contraindications, is perfectly digestible, and therefore is absolutely indispensable in children's and dietary cuisine. Based on cottage cheese there is a large number of culinary recipes, but the most in a useful way its use is to be consumed in its natural form.

Any preliminary preparation of food greatly simplifies the life of the housewife, saving time and money, and allows you to diversify the family diet. The only obstacle to freezing can be the limited size of the freezer.

Problem of choice

Juicy yellowish homemade cottage cheese is much more appetizing than store-bought. But when choosing cottage cheese, we must remember that the rate of reproduction of E. coli in cottage cheese, which is nutrient medium for bacteria, significantly higher than in other fermented milk products.

When choosing cottage cheese, everyone is guided by personal preferences. The more the cottage cheese is pressed and the lower its fat content, the more crumbly it will be. When buying cottage cheese, you need to remember that:

heterogeneous structure, layers of different colors and densities may indicate that the product offered is its mixed remains;
the product, although it is fermented milk, should not have a pronounced sour smell and taste;
the likelihood of pathogens getting into a loose product is always much higher than in a hermetically sealed industrially packaged product, and its shelf life is much shorter;
Cottage cheese is a perishable product, and therefore has a limited shelf life: you should inquire about this when purchasing.

Each seller is required to have a certificate confirming the quality of the product.

"Terrible" percentages

Horror stories about the dangers of fatty cottage cheese have no basis:

an increase in the content of “bad” cholesterol in the blood by 80% depends on metabolic disorders and only 20% on the composition of the foods consumed;
no one explains what “excessive consumption” of cottage cheese means: with all the love for it, more than 200 g of the product per day and no one eats it every day, so the product does not pose the slightest threat to people, even those suffering from kidney disease.

Presence of natural milk fats - necessary condition fat-soluble vitamins of cottage cheese.

What we have, we keep

If the product is stored open in the refrigerator for more than 3 days, it should be thermally treated: prepare cheesecakes, dumplings or casserole. Cottage cheese that is stored incorrectly can become a source of pathogenic bacteria and cause serious poisoning. Therefore, excess cottage cheese can and should be frozen.

The claim that frozen foods are harmful is a myth. Freezing cottage cheese is the easiest and most popular way to store it for a long time. Quick freezing and storage at low temperatures allows you to completely preserve almost all the vitamins and minerals contained in it. In a number of countries, cottage cheese is frozen even in industrial scale to stabilize prices in winter time. The main requirement when freezing is to avoid sudden temperature changes.

Festive video recipe:

Freezing cannot destroy pathogenic microbes and cannot in any way improve the quality of already purchased cottage cheese. It only slows down the processes that cause it to deteriorate under natural conditions. The principle of freezing is to preserve the product in its original form.

Since re-freezing any products is not recommended, the entire volume of available cottage cheese (preferably without adding salt, sugar or spices) should be hermetically packaged into single-use portions: exactly as much as may be needed for cooking.

It is generally accepted that safe cold storage requires rapid (so-called shock) freezing at the lowest possible temperature of -35 ºC, which can be easily achieved in modern household refrigerators. The chamber should be prepared several hours before the intended freezing, turning on maximum cold so as not to violate the storage conditions of other products.

"Restoration work"

A loaded freezer works more efficiently than a half-empty one due to the lack of air circulation.

High-quality freezing lasts at least 5–6 hours. Even a properly packaged product loses quality over time. It is not recommended to store cottage cheese in the freezer for more than 2 months.

The optimal shelf life of the frozen product is one month. Exceeding this period leads to the loss of its consumer qualities: defrosted cottage cheese takes on a powdery form and completely loses its taste, although it does not cause any noticeable harm to the body. Prolonged freezing will simply lead to inevitable loss of moisture.

The likelihood of drying out will be much reduced if plastic bags with cottage cheese, carefully remove all air. The higher the fat content of the cottage cheese and the lower the whey content in it, the less freezing will affect the quality. You can refine “overdried” cottage cheese by mixing it with fresh heavy cream or soaking it in milk for 2 hours.

There is no consensus among nutritionists regarding the speed of defrosting cottage cheese. Most of them are inclined to defrost it slowly. This can be done quickly by immersing its sealed packaging in a bag in hot water.

In what container should you store cottage cheese?

The ideal containers for freezing cottage cheese are vacuum or simple cellophane bags, containers or plastic trays, which can be stacked on top of each other for more rational use chamber volume. It is important to place the curd in the chamber in such a way that the product does not absorb unwanted extraneous odors.

When distributing food in the freezer, you should sort it rationally into groups. Ideally, raw and prepared foods are stored separately. It is better to indicate the freezing date of each package with a marker.

Alexander Gushchin

I can’t vouch for the taste, but it will be hot :)

Content

Protein fermented milk product, which is obtained by heating sour milk or kefir, followed by separating the whey - cottage cheese. It is divided according to the fat content into fat (17%), semi-fat (7-9%) and low-fat curds (no more than 2.5%). It is used as an independent product, or as an ingredient for preparing dishes - pancakes, cheesecakes, casseroles, cheesecakes. There are situations when there is excess fermented milk product left. Is it possible to freeze cottage cheese for storage; will its taste and nutritional qualities be spoiled?

Does cottage cheese lose its properties after freezing?

Cottage cheese is rich in slowly digestible protein (casein), containing more than 15 g of protein per 100 g. It contains a high concentration of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, vitamins B, A, C, PP. Experts say that you can store cottage cheese in the freezer - after proper freezing and defrosting, all the beneficial qualities of the product are preserved. It is frozen at temperatures down to -20 degrees, so it can be stored for up to two months.

The industrial capacities of dairy plants make it possible to produce the so-called blast freezing, at which the product freezes beyond the limit a short time at a very low temperature, approximately -35 degrees. If you freeze cottage cheese in the freezer at home at a temperature of an ordinary chamber from -5 to -10 degrees, then the taste of the cottage cheese will significantly deteriorate.

Under the influence of sub-zero temperatures, the structure of the fermented milk product changes. The liquid contained in it undergoes a crystallization process. When defrosting, separation begins, the taste of the resulting cottage cheese changes due to the fact that the microorganisms in it are activated, and the fermentation process begins due to improper preparation.

The benefits and harms of frozen cottage cheese

This type of product is obtained by straining the whey from the milk base, leaving a pure tasty protein mass and a small amount of carbohydrates, so it is extremely rich in nutrients, vitamins and microelements, see photo. Proteins are broken down by lactic acid bacteria into useful amino acids:

lysine, which is essential for the normal functioning of the liver;
methionine, which prevents the development of atherosclerosis, helps eliminate cholesterol and normalize the emotional background;
choline, which is necessary for normal functioning nervous system person.

Cottage cheese should be consumed by people with pathologies of the cardiovascular system, gastrointestinal tract, abdominal organs, obesity, atherosclerosis, hypertension, cholecystitis, fractures, joint problems. Due to the high calcium content, fermented milk product is a must for pregnant and lactating women, children, teenagers, and pensioners. Athletes use cottage cheese to replenish protein reserves and build muscle mass.

The benefit of dietary cottage cheese lies in its minimal fat content, the manufacturing technology of which involves lactic acid fermentation of skim milk by adding a special starter, see photo. This product contains the maximum amount of calcium phosphorus and vitamin PP, which strengthen the skeletal system, improve vascular elasticity, and heal the intestinal microflora. All the beneficial properties of cottage cheese are preserved in a frozen product, subject to the rules for its preparation and thawing.

The balance of benefit and harm from cottage cheese depends on the method of its production and the quality of the product. A large concentration of biologically active components is contained in a product prepared at home by fermenting natural milk. It is not recommended to use expired cottage cheese, because... pathogenic microflora actively multiply in it.

Is it possible to freeze sweet cottage cheese and how to properly preserve it? It is not recommended to consume fresh or freeze store-bought sweet curd cheeses and masses. They contain large amounts of sugar and its substitutes, preservatives, stabilizers, synthetic flavors and emulsifiers. Such additives are harmful to health in fresh and defrosted form, even if all the rules for preparing and thawing the product are followed. It should be stored on the top shelf of the refrigerator, within the expiration date indicated on the package.

Is it possible to store cottage cheese in the freezer?

Homemade cottage cheese can be stored in the refrigerator for 2-4 days at low humidity (up to 50%), if you transfer it from a plastic bag to a ceramic or enamel bowl. The shelf life of the store-bought equivalent is up to a week, because... Manufacturers add preservatives to increase the shelf life. A freshly prepared product is subjected to deep freezing, which after defrosting can be consumed without heat treatment. As for the store-bought pasty product, it is not recommended to freeze it; preference should be given to the granular one.

To freeze cottage cheese for storage, the temperature of the freezer must be set to at least -18 degrees (3rd or 4th scale division on the regulator knob). Substantial freezing extends its shelf life to 1-2 months. Such a frozen product retains its valuable and beneficial properties, but before direct consumption it must be thawed.

How to freeze

So that there is always fresh food on the table delicious cottage cheese, it must be properly frozen and stored:

For freezing, you need to take only fresh industrial or home-made product.
Use plastic bags Not recommended. Preference should be given to glass or enamel containers, which can already be wrapped in cellophane and labeled with a marker (product name and date).
Containers should not be filled to the top, because... when freezing, the liquid in the product will begin to expand and take up the entire provided volume.
It is recommended to freeze the cottage cheese in portions, because... Thawed product cannot be re-harvested.
You can freeze ready-made semi-finished products - cottage cheese is used to prepare pancakes, dumplings, cheesecakes, which are prepared according to classic recipe, then they are packaged and frozen. This way the curd does not change its taste and is stored longer.

How to defrost cottage cheese

After the thawing process, the fermented milk product should be squeezed out to remove excess whey, since it no longer has beneficial properties. It must be taken into account that the curd after defrosting must fully correspond to the fresh product: have White color, pleasant taste and aroma. Depending on the method of consumption, there are several ways to thaw this fermented milk product:

For fresh consumption, it is defrosted on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator for about 12 hours.
For preparing dishes with subsequent heat treatment - at room temperature for about 3-4 hours.
In a microwave oven with a defrost function for preparing dishes with cottage cheese.
For defrosting, followed by baking, you can use a multicooker; for this, it is recommended to set the device to a temperature of +20 degrees.

Of all fermented milk products, cottage cheese is especially popular. It is used both as an independent dish and as a component for preparing other dishes. Unfortunately, cottage cheese, like other milk products, cannot be stored for a long time. Therefore, the question arises about freezing it.

Is it possible to freeze cottage cheese?

You can store cottage cheese in the refrigerator for just a few days. This especially applies to cottage cheese homemade. Cottage cheese prepared industrially lasts a little longer. This is due to the use of pasteurized milk for its base or the use of preservatives. This cottage cheese can be stored for up to a week in the refrigerator.

If you follow all the rules, cottage cheese can be frozen and stored in this form for up to 2 months. At the same time, it will not lose either its nutritional properties or appearance. In addition, by preserving homemade cottage cheese in this way, you can eat a delicious natural product at any time of the year.

How to freeze cottage cheese

To ensure that cottage cheese does not lose its nutritional value even after defrosting, it is important to follow all the rules for high-quality freezing:

Only grainy cottage cheese is suitable for frozen storage. Use only high-quality and fresh product.
Store frozen cottage cheese only in ceramic or glass containers with a tight-fitting lid. This way you can eliminate moisture or air from entering.
Take small containers to use a portion of cottage cheese at a time.
Do not fill containers to the very top, as whey expands when frozen.
Use quick freezing at -30 degrees. In this case, the cottage cheese will freeze completely within 4 hours.
In the future, store the frozen product at a temperature of -18 degrees.

You can prepare for freezing not only the cottage cheese itself, but also semi-finished products from it - dumplings stuffed with cottage cheese, or cheesecakes. Such dishes perfectly retain all their taste properties and are suitable for quick preparation.

How to defrost cottage cheese

The process of defrosting cottage cheese can be carried out different ways. It is best to defrost the product gradually. To do this, move the container with a portion of frozen cottage cheese from the freezer to the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. There the cottage cheese will defrost gradually over 12 hours. The liquid that is formed as a result of this process must be drained. Cottage cheese thawed in this way will completely retain its structure and taste. It can be eaten in its natural form. This method has only one drawback - it takes a lot of time.

If you want to use cottage cheese to prepare something, for example, for or cottage cheese casserole, then the process can be accelerated. To do this, the container with the frozen product is immediately left at room temperature. In this case, the cottage cheese will defrost within 3 hours.

In case of emergency, you can defrost using a microwave. The microwave oven must be set to defrost fish, seafood or bread.

Some people cannot imagine their life without cottage cheese, while others are not interested in it at all, but everyone will probably agree that this product is quite popular and has been in every refrigerator on the planet many times. At the same time, cottage cheese, like any fermented milk product, does not have such a long shelf life even when refrigerated, and if you suddenly have a lot of product at your disposal or you need to leave for a while, there is a huge risk that the product will disappear. In cases where simple cooling is not able to save food, they usually resort to freezing, but in the case of cottage cheese, this method raises doubts among many.

Does the product lose its beneficial properties and taste?

In reality, of course, this is not entirely true. To be fair, we note that there is a way to freeze cottage cheese with maximum preservation of its beneficial properties, but it is available mainly to industrial enterprises that have special equipment. The goal is to freeze the product in the shortest possible time - for this, very low temperatures of about 35 degrees below zero are used, which no home freezer can provide, with the exception of some expensive models. After this, the storage temperature of the product can be reduced to 20 degrees below zero and even less, which will not be a major task even for refrigerators, but without sudden freezing at severe frost This temperature won't help at all.

An incorrect procedure for freezing and thawing cottage cheese will also harm the taste of the product. Cottage cheese only seems dry, but in fact it, like almost any other substance, contains a certain percentage of liquid, which, when frozen, crystallizes and increases in volume. Because of this, the structure of the cottage cheese is destroyed, and when defrosting, instead of a whole mass, we get, so to speak, a set of its components.

At the same time, during the defrosting process, microorganisms are often activated, accelerating the fermentation process, so a product thawed at home often causes complete disappointment.

Freezing rules

We should start with the fact that it is wrong to perceive cottage cheese as a completely monotonous product - several can be perceived under a general name. different types food, each of which requires special storage conditions and, accordingly, freezing. For example, curd cheeses and masses with various flavorings, which have filled supermarket shelves in recent decades, should not be frozen under any circumstances, since their numerous chemical components after defrosting are guaranteed to only cause harm. Therefore, you can store such products in the refrigerator, but freezing them in the freezer is a stupid idea.

You can store ordinary cottage cheese in the freezer, although there are exceptions. For example, a homemade product can be frozen without restrictions, the same applies to grainy store-bought goods, but the pasty variety from the store should not be frozen - for the same reasons as described in the paragraph above.

If we talk about temperature, then for freezing at home it is usually recommended to set the freezer temperature no higher than 18 degrees below zero.

If we talk about the practical setting of such a temperature, then on a special regulator found in most refrigerators, this temperature value is approximately located at the “3” or “4” mark, although in the case of each individual model of equipment you should rely more on the instructions than experiment .

At the same time, there are also special rules for freezing cottage cheese, expressed in the form of advice - Compliance with them will prevent you from spoiling the product through your own inept actions.

You can freeze a homemade or store-bought product, but it must be fresh. No amount of freezing will help restore slightly spoiled or “withered” cottage cheese, and any shortcomings in taste or appearance after thawing will probably only get worse.
Most people store cottage cheese in plastic bags in the refrigerator, and in the same form it goes into the freezer, which is fundamentally wrong. To properly preserve the product, it should not be in a bag at all - glass or enamel containers work much better as containers. At the same time, it cannot be said that bags are completely prohibited - on the contrary, their use is recommended, but it is not the cottage cheese itself that is placed in them, but the mentioned dishes.
Even in the freezer, cottage cheese will not be stored forever, and therefore a very sensible idea would be to write on the packaging the date when the freezing occurred. If your freezer and habits allow you to freeze many different products, it would also be useful to indicate on the package that it is cottage cheese that is stored here, otherwise there will be no extra time wasted searching the desired product trial and error cannot be avoided.

Whatever you store frozen cottage cheese in, remember that the liquid present in it will definitely freeze. Water, unlike most other substances on earth, increases in volume during the freezing process, and therefore you should not fill the dishes to the top with cottage cheese - on the contrary, you should leave a small amount of free space.
If you freeze a large amount of cottage cheese, it is better to divide it into several servings. The fact is that such a product can only be frozen and thawed once, so when you remove it from the freezer to prepare the next dish, you will not be able to put it back without irreparable consequences. Be sure that you confidently use each of the portions at a time.
If you use cottage cheese primarily for making dumplings, cheesecakes or pancakes, the most reasonable solution would be to freeze not the filling itself, but the semi-finished product as a whole. As practice shows, it is in this version that cottage cheese is stored best - often even its taste does not change.

Shelf life

In a regular refrigerator, homemade cottage cheese is usually stored for no more than four days, while store-bought cottage cheese, to which some preservatives are often added, can “live” for up to a week. Moreover, a product frozen according to all the rules described above can, in some cases, be stored for up to two months, which significantly increases its chances of being used. As part of semi-finished products, the curd filling can, in some cases, be stored even longer.

It should be understood that all specified deadlines will be met only if the cottage cheese is frozen correctly, otherwise it can be considered spoiled already on the day of freezing.

The same can be said about defrosting - if the procedure is carried out incorrectly, the desired ingredient, although successfully preserved for weeks, will be spoiled during removal from the freezer.

How to defrost correctly and how to use it?

Properly defrosted cottage cheese appearance and the taste is practically no different from fresh - this is the main criterion for determining how successful the procedure was. In this case, part of the whey will inevitably be released from the defrosted product, which can only be drained - there is nothing good left in it.

As for proper defrosting, it can be carried out using different methods, each of which is optimally suited for a specific further use.

You should act most carefully if you plan to use the cottage cheese fresh - for this it should be as similar as possible to a product that has never been frozen. For these purposes, it is usually transferred from the freezer to the bottom of the refrigerator, and there it reaches condition for another 12 hours.
If you plan to prepare some dish from cottage cheese that requires heat treatment, you don’t need to stand on ceremony with the product so much - its taste will still undergo significant changes. In this case, it is enough to keep the product at room temperature for four hours.
Some microwaves are equipped with a special defrosting function - if in the future you plan to make something hot from cottage cheese, the use of such equipment will also be very appropriate.
Cottage cheese, intended for filling in various baked dishes, can be defrosted in a slow cooker at a temperature of about 20 degrees above zero.

As it becomes clear from the methods described above, defrosted curd mass is suitable for consumption in its pure form only if it has been thawed for a very long time and gradually. Many housewives, not knowing about this feature, remove cottage cheese from the freezer too quickly, which is why the product seems spoiled to them and is supposed to be thrown away.

Even if you “ruined” the mass, this does not mean that it can no longer be used - it’s just that now it is suitable exclusively for culinary experiments.

If we talk about dishes in which you can use defrosted cottage cheese, then a good imagination will suggest a good dozen good and unusual dishes. In the first place, perhaps, will be cheesecakes, common in our area, which will not lose any of their taste due to the manipulations performed with their main ingredient. For lovers of Caucasian cuisine, khachapuri with cheese may be a good solution, which will not be a perfect copy of the original, but will still turn out pretty good. Pasta casserole can serve as an atypical dish that is not present on our table every day. Armed cookbook or on the Internet, you can find many in various ways How not to regret improper freezing or thawing of cottage cheese.

You will learn more about how to freeze cottage cheese in the following video.