Goat cheese (or chevre cheese) is super simple to make at home, not to mention ridiculously cost-effective. Using just 3 ingredients, you can whip up a batch of customizable homemade goats cheese ready to impress your family and friends!
Start by dissolving the citric acid in the water. There’s no need to heat the mixture.
Step 2. Heat The Goats milk
Pour the milk into a large saucepan. Add the dissolved citric acid and stir carefully.
Heat over medium heat gently, until you reach 85ºC/185ºF.* Then remove from heat.
Step 3. Leave the milk to curdle
Set the milk aside and allow to rest, covered (with a lid or tea towel), for 10 minutes.
Goats milk doesn’t curdle in the same way that cows milk does, as the curds can be fairly small and less ‘formed’, unlike when making ricotta. This means the mixture can still look fairly liquid after the 10 minutes.
Step 4. Drain the cheese
Place cheese cloth inside a sieve and pour the milk into the cheesecloth and allow to drain for around an hour.
You can leave the sieve over a large bowl and collect the leftover whey to use in other recipes. Alternatively, you can bundle up the cheesecloth and hang from the faucet, to drain.
Step 5. Flavor and mold it
Add your salt to the drained cheese and mix well. Now it’s time to form the cheese. You can place it in a mold or roll into a log.
To easily roll into a log, place it over a piece of beeswax wrap, plastic wrap, or wax paper and use roll into a log. Twist/fold in the ends to secure the cheese parcel.
Move the fridge to chill and ‘set’. Your homemade goats cheese is ready to use!
Optional step - Smooth creamy cheese
Once the cheese has set, you can blend it with a bit of water (2-3 Tbsp as needed) to achieve a smooth creamy goat cheese.
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Notes
*This method will differ if using lemon juice/vinegar. In that case, you only add the acid once the milk has reached this temperature and you’ve turned the heat off. Then allow to sit for 10 minutes. Read the blog post for more helpful tips in the FAQsOptional Ingredient Add-InsI love to make plain goats cheese, and then adapt smaller portions to individual meals/uses. However, you can also flavor the entire batch. Here are a few options:
You can make a herbed goat cheese using dried herbs such as chives, thyme, rosemary, etc. Add at the same time as adding milk to distribute evenly throughout the cheese.
You could also cover the goats' cheese in fresh herbs, once molded. I like to use chives or dill. You can also use dried herbs and spice blends such as tarragon, za’atar, basil, etc.
When making logs/disks, you could also cover them in chopped nuts ( raw or toasted).
For a sweet variation, drizzle with honey and, optionally, some cinnamon.