For this cheese dip you will only need 4 ingredients: butter, flour, milk and cheese. Add some salt and cayenne pepper if you like. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring all the time with a spatula. If there's one thing we hate, it's a bad batch mac & cheese. And the number one mistake when making it at home is using the wrong kind of cheese. The type you choose is extremely important for the.
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Soup is the ultimate comfort food, and a cheese-based broth brings it to the height of velvety heaven. Unfortunately, not all cheese will cooperatively swoon right into your soup. The key to getting an effortlessly smooth cheese soup lies in choosing the right cheese, prepping it correctly, helping it bond to the liquid and adding a little acid to help break it down. That and the application of low, slow heat will have your pot filled with bubbly, clump-free goodness in no time.
Choose the Right Cheese
Matching the flavor of your cheese to the rest of your ingredients is important, but it's even more crucial to pay attention to texture. It might be tempting to liven up a traditional Italian wedding soup with some exquisitely aged Parmesan, but what you'll end up with is a candidate for soup divorce court. Very dry aged cheeses do not melt well at all because their moisture content is simply too low. Some creamy, mild cheeses also stretch into strings instead of melting which is why you rarely see a mozzarella-based soup. The best cheeses for soups are high in moisture and have a lower melting point, such as medium to sharp cheddar, fontina, Gruyere and Swiss.
Give it a Toss
Adding cheese all at once to hot liquid can cause it to clump, so when making a cheese soup, it's best to grate the cheese first. Fresh cheese is best because pre-shredded cheeses can contain stabilizers that might make them harder to melt. Once you've grated the amount of cheese you intend to use, toss it with a sprinkle of cornstarch. You don't need much, approximately 1 tablespoon for each pound of grated cheese. This will help bind the cheese to the liquid in the soup and won't affect the flavor.
Simmer it Down
One of the simplest mistakes new cooks make when melting cheese is turning the heat too high. Temperatures over about 150 F break down the protein bonds in the cheese allowing too much of its moisture to escape. Bring your soup to a low simmer and gently toss in a small handful of cheese at a time. Whisk or stir the soup until each handful of cheese is thoroughly melted and incorporated before adding the next.
Booze it Up
Aside from upping the flavor factor, the tartaric acid in wine helps break down the proteins in cheese while adding water to keep this from happening too quickly. Beer has a similar effect, which is why cheddar beer soup is so luscious. Add the alcohol a little at a time, stirring as you go. If you want to avoid alcohol, which takes longer to cook off than most people think, try a few drops of lemon juice.
Sprinkle it On
Some soups don't incorporate cheese into the base liquid, but require it to be sprinkled on top. Chicken tortilla soup comes to life with a sprinkle of colby jack or crumbles of salty cotija cheese. Cheese used as topping tends not to incorporate fully, so just try to grab a bit on your spoon with each bite. And if you really want that Parmesan in your Italian wedding soup, throw a Parmesan rind in for the last five to 10 minutes of cooking and then fish it back out before serving instead of just sprinkling some on top.
References (4)
About the Author
Emmy-award nominated screenwriter Brynne Chandler is a single mother of three who divides her time between professional research and varied cooking, fitness and home & gardening enterprises. A running enthusiast who regularly participates in San Francisco's Bay to Breakers run, Chandler works as an independent caterer, preparing healthy, nutritious meals for Phoenix area residents. Her work has appeared in The Houston Chronicle and San Francisco Chronicle, among other places. She is hard at work on her first cookbook which combines simple, fresh recipes with science-based herbal medicine.
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Chandler, Brynne. 'How to Keep Cheese From Clumping in Soups.' Healthy Eating | SF Gate, http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/keep-cheese-clumping-soups-8272.html. 21 November 2018.
Chandler, Brynne. (2018, November 21). How to Keep Cheese From Clumping in Soups. Healthy Eating | SF Gate. Retrieved from http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/keep-cheese-clumping-soups-8272.html
Chandler, Brynne. 'How to Keep Cheese From Clumping in Soups' last modified November 21, 2018. http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/keep-cheese-clumping-soups-8272.html
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