Best Cottage Cheese for Pancakes

Question

Hello Milk Street team,     I have come across several recipes for cottage cheese pancakes.    At the store, there are like 10 versions of cottage cheese - 2%, 4%, large curd, small curd, etc in various combinations.    The recipes all say just "cottage cheese".   Also, name brand vs. store brand?  What do you suggest I buy to have the best chance to be successful?    I already had one failure, but can't recall which option I had picked.

Lynn Clark · Accepted Answer

Hi Maureen - I haven’t made cottage cheese pancakes and we don’t have a recipe here at Milk Street, but I can offer some basic guidelines on cooking and baking with cottage cheese that will, hopefully, help make yours more successful. I don’t like using low-fat or fat free cottage cheese in cooking and baking. These tend to break and become very watery, which will both dilute flavor and negatively impact the texture of your pancakes. In general, I prefer full-fat cottage cheese with a thicker texture. Full-fat cottage cheese is still only 4% fat, which is quite low compared to other cheeses. It also tastes worlds better than low- or fat-free cottage cheese! Thick-textured ones tends to perform better in baking applications because they won’t throw off the dry-to-wet ratio. However, it’s hard to know the texture of a particular brand of cottage cheese without opening the container and taking a look. A good guideline is to look at the ingredient list. Full fat cottage cheese without any stabilizers (xanthan gum, locust bean gum, guar gum) would be my top pick. As long as it’s full-fat and contains only milk, cream, and salt (added probiotics are OK), I don’t think curd size matters as much. Hope this helps! Best, Lynn C.

Best Cottage Cheese for Pancakes

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