If you’re reading the title of this article and your face is shriveled up and you are fighting an inner voice that’s telling you to close your browser and walk away I assure you that I’ll start with the obvious question here. Or the question that I think might be obvious at least… “Why the *#&$ would you make dehydrated blue cheese?”
When I dried parmesan cheese for the first time it was largely out of curiosity. Curiosity and whimsy – I fully expected that I’d be transforming a high value ingredient into something that resembled the commercial crap I ate as a child. The results turned my world upside down! Homemade dried parmesan cheese was far more concentrated than it’s commercial counterpart and the cheese was incredibly useful, delicious to eat and a little went a very long way.
The idea being dehydrated blue cheese was inspired by my previous success. I was curious to see what would happen when all moisture was removed from the cheese and it was turned into powder.
When I dried the cheese I crumbled it into chunks. After 24 hours I found that the chunks were almost completely dry on the outside but a small amount of moisture remained on the inside. The texture was incredibly cool – the surface was slightly hard but quickly crumbled when bitten. The crumbled cheese exploded it’s flavor across my mouth and was one of the coolest cheese experiences I’ve ever had. I found it nearly impossible to resist and ate far more than I planned to at this stage.
Because the cheese wasn’t 100% dry at this stage I would store it in a sealed glass jar in the fridge or continue with the next step.
The dried chunks of cheese didn’t lose a lot of volume – I estimate that I reduce 1/3 cup of loosely packed cheese to 1/4 cup. It did, however, lose a lot of weight – 90% (from 100 grams to 10)!
The second step resulted in a fine powder that was slightly off-white (but not a bland grey as I feared). It was very similar to Parmesan; incredibly useful and a small amount goes a long way!
WHAT TO DO WITH DRIED BLUE CHEESE
- Sprinkled over chicken wings/ fried chicken in lieu of blue cheese dip.
- Added to salad dressing.
- Tossed on pasta.
- Combined with mayo in a sandwich.
- Scattered over popcorn.
- Added to baked potatoes, bacon and butter.
- Combined with dried chives on kale chips.
- Added to roasted vegetables.
- Tossed on steak.
- Cooked in a burger.
- Added to an omelette.
DRIED BLUE CHEESE RECIPE
Dehydrated Blue Cheese Recipe (How to)
Prep time
10 mins
Cook time
24 hours
Total time
24 hours 10 mins
Author: Joel MacCharles
Recipe type: Dehydrating
Serves: 10 grams
Ingredients
- 100 grams blue cheese
Instructions
- Loosely crumble blue cheese.
- Place on a dehydrator tray and dry at 125 degrees for 18-24 hours.
- Allow a piece of cheese to cool for a few minutes and crumble it to test for doneness (it should be completely dry and brittle). If it still has moisture, return to dehydrator and dry for a few additional hours and test again.
- Grind into a powder or store in chunks by placing cheese in a jar with a lid. We store ours in the fridge though your likely could store without a fridge.