Soft Cheese

It's hard not to love soft cheese

There's something luxurious and comforting about soft cheese. While their older, firmer cousins are big on flavor, soft cheese delivers loads of creamy texture and mild, tangy taste. Hard cheeses like aged cheddars or parmesans are great for adventurous expeditions in flavor, but at the end of the day, it's really a soft cheese you want to come home to.

In Wisconsin, we make dozens of soft cheese varieties that warm us on cold winter nights and cool our palates on summer afternoons. When there's a soft cheese or cheese spread on the table, you can be sure that conversation is reduced to "mmmm", "wow", and "oh my goodness."

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Explore Wisconsin soft cheese

In Wisconsin, our cheesemakers produce dozens of soft cheese varieties, including:

Burrata - this ball of white soft cheese features an exterior shell of mozzarella with a mozzarella curd and cream center. softer, creamy center.
Cream cheese - a mild and spreadable soft cheese, cream cheese has a rich and slightly sweet flavor.
Feta – this tart and tasty fresh cheese adds a bright splash of Mediterranean flavor to any dish.
Fresh mozzarella – this bright, fresh cheese is more delicate and creamy than the mozzarella used in pizza.
Mascarpone - this sweet Italian-style whole cream cheese has a milky, slightly sweet flavor, and a high butterfat content of 60-to-75%, making it a staple of Italian desserts.
Quark cheese – this milky fresh, slightly tart spreadable cheese of German origin is a cross between ricotta and sour cream.
Ricotta - a light and fluffy, snowy white cheese made from whey, ricotta adds creamy flavor to sweet and savory dishes alike.
Stracchino - a soft cheese that spreads, melts, and layers beautifully, stracchino has a mild, delicate flavor and super creamy texture.

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FAQs: What is soft cheese?

What is soft cheese?

A soft cheese is any young or fresh cheese with a high moisture content that makes it soft enough to spread. Unripened soft cheeses have a mild and milky flavor, while ripened soft cheeses are aged for a few weeks to allow mold within the cheese to grow and impart more flavor.

Why is cheese soft?

A soft cheese is made without pressing the curd to squeeze out the whey, or milk liquids, resulting in a cheese with higher moisture content. Soft cheeses are only slightly aged or not aged at all, giving them a softer texture but a shorter shelf life. While hard cheeses may last months, soft cheeses only last weeks at most.

A soft spot for soft cheese

If soft cheese has a special place in your heart, you'll want to buy it from a special place called Wisconsin. Producing more than 600 varieties, styles, and flavors of cheese – more than anywhere else in the world – our cheesemakers have been making cheese for more than 175 years, so they've kind of got the process down. But tradition aside, it's their dedication to constantly improving and innovating that has helped them bring home more cheesemaking awards than any other place on the planet.

Plus, since soft cheese is fresh cheese, it only makes sense to source it from a northern neighbor rather than a country that's a long boat ride away. So, next time you've got a soft cheese recipe or yearn for a cheese you can slather on bread or crackers, make sure it's got the Proudly Wisconsin Cheese ™ badge on the label.

Craving award-winning aged cheddar, pining for parmesan, or searching for a new cheese to try? The world’s best cheese is just a click away! Explore our directory of Wisconsin cheesemakers and retailers who offer online cheese shopping and get cheese shipped right to your door. What are you waiting for?

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