How to Eat Farmer Cheese 11 Delicious Ways, From Pizza to Cheesecake

If you aren't familiar with farmer cheese, we're so glad we found you. This tangy soft cheese is quickly becoming one of our favorites, and we’re sure you’ll love it too. If you’re a fan of either ricotta or cottage cheese, farmer cheese will be a natural addition to your dairy lineup. It’s a spreadable cheese, and its mild, slightly sweet flavor makes it a versatile kitchen ingredient, perfect for simply spreading over toast, creating delicious dips, adding to pasta dishes, and more. Ahead, learn how to make the most of farmer cheese.

Farmer Cheese, Explained

Farmer cheese (also called farmer's cheese) has humble beginnings as a simple soft cheese often made by farmers. It’s similar to ricotta and cottage cheese in terms of both flavor and texture, though it’s a bit firmer than the latter. That’s to say that it’s normally a soft and spreadable cheese with a mild flavor. The curds can be small, like a smooth ricotta, or chunkier, like cottage cheese. 

How it is made: There are two main ways to make a soft cheese like this. You can include a starter (i.e., something that contains probiotics like buttermilk or yogurt) or add an acid, such as vinegar or lemon juice. Either way, you combine the milk and salt (and either the starter or acid) in a pot and cook it gently under the curds separate from the whey. Once that happens, you strain the whey through a cheesecloth-lined sieve, leaving behind the small curds. The longer you let the cheese drain, the more dry and crumbly it will become. 

Not the same as cheese curds: Farmer cheese is sometimes mistaken for cheese curds. While both types of cheese are made from curds, farmer cheese has a different texture to the undeniably squeaky and chewy cheese curds.

Flavor

As a soft, fresh cheese, farmer cheese has a flavor that is slightly tangy and sweet but overall quite mild. The flavor can change depending on the method used to make it. For instance, was heavy cream added alongside milk to make it more luscious? Or was lemon juice stirred in to give it a slightly tangier taste? Much like ricotta and cottage cheese, farmer cheese tends to take on the flavors of whatever you add to it.

How to Eat Farmer Cheese

Farmer cheese can be enjoyed in both sweet and savory applications. Consider where you would use ricotta or cottage cheese and swap it in as you see fit.

Toast and Bagels

Move over, ricotta toast. So long bagels and cream cheese. Farmer cheese is the ultimate ingredient to spread over warm slices of crusty golden brown bread or a lightly toasted bagel. It has the tanginess we seek from cream cheese and the creaminess found in ricotta. Try serving it with the following toppings:

• Olive oil, flaky salt, and freshly ground black pepper
• Honey and fresh berries or jam
• Everything bagel seasoning and minced chives
• Marinated cherry tomatoes and torn basil leaves
• Smoked salmon, capers, thinly sliced red onion, and dill

Salad

A crumbly farmer cheese is perfect for breaking into small bits and sprinkling over your favorite salads. It’s similar to (but less firm and salty than) feta, so we love to scatter the crumbles over Greek salad.

Pasta Filling

Any pasta filling that normally uses ricotta can benefit from substituting farmer cheese. Use it to stuff jumbo shells and fill ravioli, tortellini, or manicotti. It can also be used in lieu of ricotta when layering lasagna, both of the meaty or vegetarian varieties.

Pasta Sauce

Add a finishing touch of creaminess to any pasta sauce by stirring in a spoonful of farmer cheese at the end.

Dip

Give your next spinach-artichoke dip an instant upgrade by adding some farmer cheese to the mix–just swap out up to half of the cream cheese. It can also be served as a dip in its own right. Mix the farmer cheese with a bit of milk, if needed, to lighten it up and make it creamier. Then drizzle it with olive oil (flavored ones like those infused with garlic, chile flakes, or fennel seeds are delicious options) and sprinkle with toasted seeds and/or fresh herbs. Serve with crackers or crudités for scooping.

Meatballs and Meatloaf

A spoonful of ricotta is one of our test kitchen's secrets to lightening up a recipe of meatballs and meatloaf. Farmer cheese does the trick, too.

Frittata and Quiche

Before you pop your next frittata or quiche into the oven, add a few dollops of farmer cheese to the top.

Stuffed French Toast

Mix farmer cheese with some powdered sugar and cinnamon, then spread it into slits in bread before you fry up French toast. It's less sweet than cream cheese, which is typically used for this, so you can drizzle with as much maple syrup as you like.

Cheesecake

If a cheesecake recipe calls for ricotta, you can swap in farmer cheese, especially if the recipe still has some cream cheese to compensate.

Brulée

Need a super quick dessert? Spread farmer cheese into individual ramekins, sprinkle the tops with a thick coating of sugar, and take a blow torch to the top to create a crackly sugar crust.

Pizza

Mix farmer cheese with shredded mozzarella and a splash of olive oil to make a quick and easy white sauce to spread over pizza dough.