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Cheese from Mexico, especially the north and the Huasteca of San Luis Potosí

Queso asaderoqueso asadero

Queso asadero is a fresh Mexican stretched-curd (pasta filata) cheese. In the UNAM teaching method the milk is acidified with citric acid, set with rennet at 32 °C, and the curd is melted at 64–65 °C and kneaded until it stretches, then salted and shaped into balls or flat rounds. Small dairies in the Huasteca often use raw milk, and the fresh cheese keeps only days.

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceAmounts for a 100 L batch from the flow chart of the dairy module at FES Cuautitlán (UNAM), which acidifies with citric acid. The Huasteca study gives no recipe amounts.
Milk100 L3.3 % fat and 14–17 °D acidity in the UNAM teaching method, which does not name the species; raw milk is the general rule in small-scale making in the Huasteca[unam2024][carrillo2011]
Citric acid160 g per 100 L of milkUNAM teaching method; the milk is acidified directly, so this version is acid-set, not fermented[unam2024]
Liquid rennet10 mL per 100 L of milk (strength 1:10,000), or 5 mL (1:20,000)[unam2024]
Salt2 % of the cheese yield[unam2024]
Starternone; the UNAM teaching method acidifies the milk with citric acid instead

Total time across the recorded steps: 1 h

Start
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What changes: Starting material: filtered milk in the vat

Step 1 of 8
Receive and filter the milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: filtered milk, 3.3 % fat.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Queso asadero is a fresh Mexican stretched-curd (pasta filata) cheese. In the UNAM teaching method the milk is acidified with citric acid, set with rennet at 32 °C, and the curd is melted at 64–65 °C and kneaded until it stretches, then salted and shaped into balls or flat rounds. Small dairies in the Huasteca often use raw milk, and the fresh cheese keeps only days. Made in 8 steps over 1 h. The longest step, set with rennet, takes 30 min (Carrillo-Martinez A 2024) and runs at 32 °C (Carrillo-Martinez A 2024). Salt is 2 % (Carrillo-Martinez A 2024).

Key numbers
Main step30 minReported[unam2024]Set with rennet
Temperature32 °CReported[unam2024]Set with rennet
Salt2 %Reported[unam2024]Salt and shape
AciditypH 5.6Measured[carrillo2011]Salt and shape

What makes this one different

Like Oaxaca cheese, asadero is a Mexican stretched curd, but it is shaped into balls or flat rounds rather than wound into a ball of strips. It is cooked in two stages and kneaded, and it is eaten fresh rather than ripened.

Milk
Often raw in small dairies; the sources do not name the species
Shelf life
A fresh cheese, not ripened, with a shelf life of days

Related ferments

Safety

Asadero is a moist fresh cheese (water activity 0.91, pH 5.6 in one study) and small makers often use raw milk. In that study faecal coliforms passed the limit of the Mexican standard NOM-121-SSA1-1994 after 5 days at 30 °C and 7 days at 20 °C, while cheese kept at 10 °C stayed within it; the authors set shelf lives of 9, 5 and 3 days at 10, 20 and 30 °C. CDC says raw milk can carry Listeria, Brucella, Salmonella and E. coli. It says people at higher risk of Listeria, including pregnant women, people 65 or older and people with weak immunity, should avoid raw-milk cheese unless it is heated to 165 °F (74 °C) or until steaming hot. Its list for those groups also names unheated queso-fresco-type fresh soft cheeses, even from pasteurised milk; it does not name asadero.

Hazards the sources name: Faecal coliforms, above the Mexican limit after 5 to 7 days without cooling; Salmonella spp. and Staphylococcus aureus tested for and not found.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Asadero is an important part of the farm economy of the Huasteca in north-east Mexico, where much of it is still made from raw milk and sold unpackaged.

  1. [carrillo2011] Carrillo-Inungaray ML, Mondragón-Hernández FM. 2011. Estudio de vida útil del queso asadero. Revista Salud Pública y Nutrición 12(3)paper
  2. [unam2024] Carrillo-Martinez A., Tapia-Cortina G.I., Ambrocio-Sandoval J.I. et al. 2024, Uso de los diagramas de flujo en la elaboración de productos lácteos, Memorias del Congreso Nacional de Tecnología (CONATEC) 7:248–256, FES Cuautitlán, UNAM (Figure 1, flow chart for queso asadero)paper
  3. [nmsu-cheese] New Mexico State University, Food Technology, Artisan cheese presentation (steps for feta, asadero, farmhouse cheddar and mozzarella)gov
  4. [cdc-raw-milk] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Raw Milk (31 January 2025)gov
  5. [cdc-listeria] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Preventing Listeria Infectiongov