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Cheese from Lebanon

Halloum (Levant)حلوم

A boundary cheese set with rennet and cooked in whey. Milk is set at about 30 °C, the curd is pressed, cut into pieces and cooked in hot whey, about 95 °C in a Lebanese study, then folded and salted. It is eaten fresh or kept in brine of about 10–13 % salt for months.

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe amounts and settings here come from one pilot study of semi-skimmed halloum made from pasteurised milk (Dib 2010); the sources give no traditional recipe amounts.
Milk, traditionally sheep; goat, cow or mixed milk is now common[dimassi2025]
Rennet[dib2010][dimassi2025]
Calcium chloride, 0.01–0.02 % of the milk, in a pasteurised-milk study[dib2010]
Salt, for surface salting and brine[dib2010][dimassi2025]

Total time across the recorded steps: 2.1 days

Start
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72 °C

What changes: In the pilot study the milk is heated to 72 °C for 20 seconds

Step 1 of 6
Pasteurise the milk
Time
0.4 min
Reported
Temperature
72 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Industrial production, which has increasingly replaced the artisanal method, uses pasteurised milk (Dimassi 2025).

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

A boundary cheese set with rennet and cooked in whey. Milk is set at about 30 °C, the curd is pressed, cut into pieces and cooked in hot whey, about 95 °C in a Lebanese study, then folded and salted. It is eaten fresh or kept in brine of about 10–13 % salt for months. Made in 6 steps over 2.1 days. The longest step, brine, takes 2 days (Dib H 2010). Salt is 5–13 % (Dib H 2010).

Key numbers
Main step2 daysReported[dib2010]Brine
Temperature72 °CReported[dib2010]Pasteurise the milk
Salt5–13 %Reported[dib2010][dimassi2025]Brine

What makes this one different

The Levantine form of the halloumi type, made from sheep, goat or cow milk. The Lebanese standard classes it by fat in dry matter, and it is eaten both fresh and after months in brine.

Fresh halloum
Moisture about 43–48 %, fat 20–23 %, protein 22–26 %, pH 5.9–6.4, salt 1–2 %
Brined halloum
Moisture 42–46 %, salt 4–6 %, pH about 5.5
Lebanese standard
Semi-skimmed halloum must have 10–25 % fat in dry matter (LIBNOR NL 222, 2001, as cited)
Season
Mostly made in late spring and early summer, when sheep and goat milk is plentiful

Related ferments

Safety

Industrial production has increasingly replaced the artisanal method and uses pasteurised milk. In a Lebanese pilot study the milk was pasteurised at 72 °C for 20 seconds and the curd was cooked in whey at 95 °C. Fresh halloum has too little salt to keep and needs refrigeration; brined halloum keeps for months chilled.

History and sources

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

A review cites FAO records that Lebanese halloum was traditionally shaped into rounds and aged briefly before cooking, a practice now largely replaced by industrial making from pasteurised milk. The whey left from halloum is reheated to make karishi, a ricotta-like whey cheese.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
  1. [dib2010] Dib H., Hajj Semaan E., Abi Abdallah G. 2010, Optimisation des conditions de production du halloum demi-écrémé, Lebanese Science Journal 11(1):45–53paper
  2. [dimassi2025] Dimassi O., Jaber L., Fleyfel L., Hamadeh S. 2025, Milk supply in Lebanon - economic challenges and the role of traditional dairy products, Foods 14(17):3115paper
  3. [hassan2021] Hassan H.F., Saidy L., Haddad R., Hosri C., Asmar S., Jammoul A., Jammoul R., Hassan H., Serhan M. 2021, Investigation of the effects of some processing conditions on the fate of oxytetracycline and tylosin antibiotics in the making of commonly consumed cheeses from the East Mediterranean, Veterinary World 14(6):1644-1649, doi:10.14202/vetworld.2021.1644-1649paper