How To Make Cottage Cheese Taste Better

How to make cottage cheese taste better? Cottage cheese, out of all the mainstream dairy products, is likely the one with the worst reputation in terms of taste. While there are many people who love it, there seems to be just as many who hate it or are indifferent to it. Admittedly, cottage cheese’s chunky and slightly liquidy texture are a bit unorthodox when viewing the vast landscape of foods. Additionally, many people are not delighted with its sometimes tangy, salty, yet creamy taste. However, for health or various other reasons, people eat cottage cheese despite not exactly liking it plain.

Here are a few ways to make cottage cheese taste better:

• Hot Sauce – Add a couple splashes of hot sauce like Tabasco or Frank’s Red Hot to cottage cheese and give it a stir. Give it a taste and add more as needed. This will give your cottage cheese a nice kick with  adding almost no additional calories.
• Fruit – Fruit and cottage cheese are a classic combination. The sweetness of fruit helps make cottage cheese more palatable if you don’t care for the taste. Popular fruit mix-ins are pineapple, peaches,  raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, and cantaloupe. It is tough to go wrong with a cottage cheese and fruit combo. You can even buy pre-packaged cottage cheese with added fruit similar to yogurt if you want a very easy snack.
• Veggies – Any vegetable pretty much pairs well with cottage cheese. Some favorites are tomatoes, chives, red peppers, and cucumbers.
• Smoothie – Cottage cheese can be blended up in a smoothie to smooth out its chunkiness. Additionally, if you don’t care for cottage cheese’s flavor, you can hide it by adding juice and fruit. Try blending a 1/2 cup cottage, 1/2 cup orange juice, and a 1.5 cups of frozen fruit into a smoothie.
• Salsa – Although odd to some, salsa is a somewhat popular mix-in to cottage cheese. People claim that the salsa drowns out the cottage cheese taste.  Scoop 1/2 to 3/4 cup of cottage cheese into a bowl and add 1/4 cup salsa. You can eat cottage cheese and salsa on its own or use it as a dip for tortilla chips.
• Eggs – We previously posted a recipe for scrambled eggs with cottage cheese. You can check it out here. Alternatively, you can make an omelet with cottage cheese stuffed in the center. This can make for a healthy breakfast.
• Spices – Herbs, spices, and seasonings can do an excellent job at making cottage cheese taste better while being super easy. Sprinkle in pepper, cinnamon with raisins, sesame seeds, dried onion, and whatever other seasonings you enjoy.
• Horseradish – horseradish tends to win the battle for taste when it is mixed with cottage cheese because it is so powerful. You will only need about a tablespoon for a cup of cottage cheese. This is great to use as a dip.
• Peanut Butter – We were actually not fans of cottage cheese and peanut butter. The combination was just a bit weird. You can see our review on the combo here.  We included it on the list because there appears to be many people who enjoy these two mixed together.
• Jam & Jelly – Take out the jam or jelly from the refrigerator and mix in a spoonful of your favorite flavor. Simple as that.
• Yogurt – Fix yourself a bowl of 50 % cottage cheese, 50% yogurt and top with fruit.
• Crackers – Crumble some crackers into a dish of cottage cheese. The crunchiness and saltiness of the crackers is an excellent combo with the creaminess of the cottage cheese. You don’t have to get fancy with your cracker selection. Ritz, Wheat Thins. or Saltine crackers are just fine.
• Granola – Sprinkle some granola on top of your cottage cheese. Add some fruit and you have an awesome breakfast or snack.
• Honey– Drizzle on some honey, add fruit. and you have a dessert-like cottage cheese mix.
• Ketchup – President Nixon was known to eat cottage cheese and ketchup, which he learned from his grandma. Nixon said he added the ketchup because he didn’t care for the taste of cottage cheese. He ate the cottage cheese for health/diet reasons.

The base ingredients of cottage cheese are simply milk, cream, and salt. This makes it a very versatile food that can be paired with countless food combinations   Finding how to make cottage cheese taste better is very easy and often requires just look around your kitchen to find foods that can add flavor. Let us know what you use to make cottage cheese taste better in the comments below.

Photo Credit: Barb Watson