Matthew Woolen is a master pastry chef and has worked in a variety of Seattle restaurants, including gastropub Old Sage, Zhu Dang, and a gluten-free restaurant called Capitol Cider.

Matthew Woolen

Everybody grew up with someone—probably older, probably on some kind of diet—who used to do a little jig at lunchtime in anticipation of a platter of fruit salad with two perfect rounds of cottage cheese ice cream–scooped straight out of a huge tub in the fridge. Right? And it never really made sense: Fruit’s fine—we love fruit—but cottage cheese ... whatever it was, it was not good.Thing is, they were on to something. There’s a lot to like about cottage cheese. It’s a low-calorie cheese. It’s got a ton of protein, which is why it’s been considered “diet food” for so long. But it’s also versatile! You can use it in all sorts of stuff, like make pancakes or even turn it into ice cream base like all the crazy cool kids on TikTok.But what that probably older person knew and what these cool crazy kids seem to now know, too, is that cottage cheese is tasty. Not just in sweet treats for breakfast or desserts, but all on its own. The reason cottage cheese platters became the butt of a joke is the supermarket tubs can be lackluster in the flavor department. With sous vide, it’s easy to make cottage cheese with consistent results—and the cottage cheese can be delicious. Sous vide gives you more control over the texture, consistency, and flavor of the final product than traditional methods, and by making the cheese yourself, you have control over the quality of the dairy and the size of the cottage cheese curds. You can culture the dairy for longer or shorter times, depending on your schedule and taste preferences, and you can cook the cultured curds at lower or higher temperatures, depending on how firm you like them. And by draining the curds thoroughly and seasoning them with a mixture of half-and-half (or cream), whey, and salt, you can adjust the final consistency to be as liquid or dry as you like.

Sous Vide Cottage Cheese