Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Cheese from Portugal, Setúbal peninsula

Queijo de Azeitão PDOQueijo de Azeitão

Raw ewe milk is salted, warmed to 30–32 °C and set with a cardoon-flower (thistle) extract in 45–60 minutes. The soft curd is worked and pressed by hand into small moulds. The cheeses then ripen at least 16 days in two rooms, where they first sweat a sticky "reima" that is scraped off, then dry slowly into a soft, buttery cheese.

Fully documentedCheese17 days – 25 daysPDO (DOP, Portugal), registered 21 June 1996Family: Hard pressed ewe cheese family (Manchego and Pecorino Romano as templates)

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe specification caps salt at 25 g per litre of milk and leaves the cardoon dose to each cheesemaker. A normal cheese weighs about 250 g; a small one about 100 g.
Raw ewe milkKept below 4 °C for no more than 48 hours; no heat treatment beyond warming to 30–32 °C[azeitao-oj2023]
Cardoon flower extract (Cynara cardunculus)The only coagulant; made a few hours ahead, amount set by each cheesemaker[azeitao-oj2023]
Salt25 g per litre at mostAdded to the milk before setting[azeitao-oj2023]
Starterno commercial starter cultures; the raw milk's own bacteria

Total time across the recorded steps: 17 days – 25 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
30–32 °C

What changes: Raw ewe milk is salted and warmed to 30–32 °C

Step 1 of 5
Salt and warm the milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
30–32 °C
Set
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
L. mesenteroides
Lactococcus lactis
Lacticaseibacillus zeae
L. kefiri

Output: warm salted milk.

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

Raw ewe milk is salted, warmed to 30–32 °C and set with a cardoon-flower (thistle) extract in 45–60 minutes. The soft curd is worked and pressed by hand into small moulds. The cheeses then ripen at least 16 days in two rooms, where they first sweat a sticky "reima" that is scraped off, then dry slowly into a soft, buttery cheese. Made in 5 steps over 17 days – 25 days. The longest step, sweat in the exudation room, takes 8–12 days (European Commission 2023) and runs at 8–14 °C (European Commission 2023). Leuconostoc mesenteroides and Lactococcus lactis (dominant), with Lacticaseibacillus zeae, Lentilactobacillus kefiri, Lactiplantibacillus plantarum and Latilactobacillus sakei does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step8–12 daysSet[azeitao-oj2023]Sweat in the exudation room
Temperature8–14 °CSet[azeitao-oj2023]Sweat in the exudation room

What makes this one different

Azeitão descends from Serra da Estrela and is also set with cardoon, but it is far smaller (100–250 g) and ripens at least 16 days, against at least 30 for Serra da Estrela. Ripening runs in two rooms, one where the cheese sweats and is scraped and one where it dries.

Milk
Raw ewe milk from the delimited area; nothing added but salt and cardoon
Ripening
At least 16 days, in two phases of 8–12 days each
Composition
Moisture 63–69 % of fat-free cheese; fat over 45 % and under 60 % of dry matter
Size
Normal about 250 g, 6–11 cm across; small about 100 g, 5–7 cm across

Related ferments

Variants

  • Tamanho normalAbout 250 g, 6–11 cm across, 3–5 cm high.
  • Tamanho pequenoAbout 100 g, 5–7 cm across, 2–4 cm high.

Safety

Made only from raw ewe milk, kept below 4 °C for at most 48 hours and from brucellosis-free flocks. One study found that keeping the cheese at 25 °C raised tyramine and putrescine, so it should stay cold after ripening. ANSES advises pregnant women, young children, people over 65 and people with weak immunity not to eat raw-milk cheeses other than hard cooked ones such as gruyère or comté, because of Listeria, Salmonella and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli.

History and sources

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

Around 1830 Gaspar Henriques de Paiva, from Belmonte in the Beiras, had a cheesemaker from Castelo Branco come each year to make Serra-style cheeses in Azeitão; one local shepherd learned the method. His son made the cheeses smaller, and he presented them at the Portuguese Industrial Expo of 1880 and the 1905 Congress and Expo on the Dairy, Olive and Oil Industries in Lisbon, where they won medals and diplomas. The name was registered as a PDO on 21 June 1996.

  1. [azeitao-oj2023] European Commission 2023, Publication of an application for approval of an amendment to the product specification, 'Queijo de Azeitão' (PDO-PT-0217-AM01), with single document, Official Journal of the European Union C/2023/380, 18.10.2023; approved in OJ L 2024/443spec
  2. [cardinali2021] Cardinali F. et al. 2021, Microbial communities and volatile profile of Queijo de Azeitão PDO cheese, a traditional Mediterranean thistle-curdled cheese from Portugal, Food Research International 147:110537 (abstract)paper
  3. [pereira2026] Pereira C.D. et al. 2026, Role of cardoon (Cynara spp.) and raw milk microbiota in Iberian PDO and PGI small ruminants' milk cheeses, Foods 15(13):2359 (review)paper
  4. [eambrosia-reg] European Commission, eAmbrosia register record for 'Queijo de Azeitão' (PDO-PT-0217), EU protection date 1996-06-21spec
  5. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov