This Is the Best Mozzarella Cheese for Cooking.
Mozzarella cheese is my favorite food item and I don’t think I’m alone in this regard. It’s salty, rich, and can stretch a little when cooked, but should we cook it? This elastic cheese is available in several varieties, one of which is ideal for cooking at high temperatures. The rest, though, not so much.
Cheese making will never stop and should never stop. Where would we be without grilled cheese, lasagna, cheddar omelettes or pizza? Lost in sad, tasteless oblivion. I don’t want this for anyone, especially myself. When I talk about widely available types of mozzarella, I’m talking about low-moisture, fresh, and burrata. (Burrata is a shell of fresh mozzarella with a creamy center, and I think it’s worth mentioning here.) The best mozzarella for high-temperature cooking is one with low moisture content.
Mozzarella is strong stuff
Cheese consists of protein, fat, water and acid ( read more about cheese components here ) in different percentages. These different pieces of the puzzle work together to help the cheese melt, stretch, and chew. Mozzarella has a strong protein network, thanks to which it stretches well.
Fresh mozzarella and burrata are strong and elastic, but unlike low-moisture mozzarella, they contain a lot of water. You can even think of them as high-moisture mozzarella. There are other cheeses that have a high moisture content, and the water content helps them melt. However, when heated, the strong protein networks (also called micelles) in mozzarella shrink and begin to squeeze out the moisture and fat they held at lower temperatures.
These types of mozzarella have so much moisture that the first thing you’ll notice when the temperature rises is the release of water. It releases and drenches that casserole or homemade margherita pizza you worked so hard on, and now it’s soggy. What’s more, when it cools, the once melty cheese is now a piece of rubber that slides off in one bite. What gives?
Tests and results of fresh mozzarella
I heated some fresh mozzarella to a few different temperatures to see the difference. A puddle of water sucks, but texture issues don’t occur when the cheese is on the heat – hot cheese melts and of course there is water, but that can’t kill my mood! – it’s when the cheese is removed from the heat that the texture suffers. Let’s be honest: you won’t eat pizza or lasagna while it’s bubbling. You know what will happen to the palate. You wait for it to cool down.
When fresh mozzarella is heated to between 130 and 144°F, the mozzarella will retain water but retain fat. Once cooled, the cheese retains a slightly chewy texture and creamy flavor. At temperatures between 150 and 160°F, the mozzarella clumps together in the water and begins to push out some of the fats. Once cooled, the cheese becomes firm and chewy, almost like cheese. When heated to approximately 190°F or higher, the cheese loses moisture and the fat globules break off. Once cooled, the cheese is rich and has a hard texture, almost like chewy coconut.
Burrata works in the same way, but becomes even more tragic when the structure collapses. Since it’s essentially a ball with cream inside, the white will push out the water and the once creamy ball will turn into a watery milky puddle with bits of rubbery mozzarella floating around. If you need to reheat burrata, keep it below 130°F.
Low-moisture mozzarella rules everything
Low moisture mozzarella comes in large bricks for slicing or shredded in bags. Obviously, it contains less water than its mosaic cousins, resulting in a more balanced composition. It is drier and denser, with a texture closer to cheddar or provolone.
When heated to higher and higher temperatures, there isn’t a ton of water left for the micellar networks to push out, and the available fat is busy breaking down the protein network—the melting factor. Low-moisture mozzarella does not overheat, forming a puddle of water, and does not become greasy. You can heat this type of cheese to over 350°F, which is great for our pizza, and the worst thing that happens is also the best thing: it crunches. Low-moisture mozzarella stuck on the edges of the pizza and pressed against the sides of the baking dish turns into the crispy, chewy prize that everyone is after.
Treat fresh mozzarella with love
While fresh mozzarella has no place on a brick oven pizza (unless you want it watery and rubbery), it still has a place in your refrigerator. Use this cream cheese to decorate sandwiches or cold salads; Caprese is famous for the wonders of fresh mozzarella. Serve it warm as a finishing component to hot dishes. You have all those degrees up to about 130°F to get a warm cream cheese (albeit a little watery). For reference, you can touch or pinch cheese at temperatures below 130°F. Once the cheese gets close to this temperature, squeezing a mound of melted mozzarella becomes painful. Not that I want to get into the habit of pinching hot cheese, but here we are.