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Cheese from Mexico

Queso frescoqueso fresco

Warm milk is set with rennet, and the curd is cut, drained, broken up and salted, then squeezed and formed into a round. It is eaten fresh, while it is still soft and crumbly. Little acid develops and its pH stays high, which is why it is a known Listeria risk.

Fully documentedCheese1 h – 1.2 h

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceHome recipe from Washington State University Extension (PNW539, revised 2019), written so that the cheese is made from pasteurised milk. Traditional queso fresco is made from raw milk, and the sources give no amounts for that.
Pasteurised whole milk2 qtCow, goat or sheep milk; whole or 2 % milk, no lower[wsu-pnw539]
Pasteurised cultured buttermilk1 qtCultured[wsu-pnw539]
White vinegar7 tsp (2 tbsp + 1 tsp)[wsu-pnw539]
Rennet1 tablet, dissolved in 1/2 cup cold water[wsu-pnw539]
Salt3/4 tsp[wsu-pnw539]
Herbs; fresh peppers (optional)1 tsp dried or 1 tbsp fresh; 1–2 tbsp[wsu-pnw539]

Total time across the recorded steps: 1 h – 1.2 h

Start
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63 °C

What changes: Milk held at 145 °F for 30 minutes kills the harmful bacteria first

Step 1 of 6
Pasteurise raw milk, or start with pasteurised milk
Time
30 min
Reported
Temperature
63 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactococcus lactis
L. mesenteroides
Enterococcus faecium
Lactococcus
Lactic acid bacteria

Traditional queso fresco is made from raw milk; the extension recipe adds this step for safety. Output: pasteurised milk.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

heat kills the harmful bacteria in raw milk

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

Warm milk is set with rennet, and the curd is cut, drained, broken up and salted, then squeezed and formed into a round. It is eaten fresh, while it is still soft and crumbly. Little acid develops and its pH stays high, which is why it is a known Listeria risk. Made in 6 steps over 1 h – 1.2 h. The longest step, mix in buttermilk and vinegar, warm, and add rennet, takes 30–40 min (Powers-Hammond L. 2019) and runs at 32 °C (Powers-Hammond L. 2019). Salt is 1.5–2 % (Holle M.J 2018). Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis, Leuconostoc mesenteroides and Enterococcus faecium and Lactococcus, Lactobacillus and Leuconostoc in artisanal fresh cheese from Sinaloa, Mexico do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step30–40 minReported[wsu-pnw539]Mix in buttermilk and vinegar, warm, and add rennet
Temperature32 °CReported[wsu-pnw539]Mix in buttermilk and vinegar, warm, and add rennet
Salt1.5–2 %Measured[holle2018]Break up, salt and press into a round
AciditypH 6.6–6.9Measured[holle2018]Break up, salt and press into a round

What makes this one different

Queso fresco is set with rennet, then salted, squeezed and eaten fresh. Little acid develops, and the nine US commercial cheeses tested had a pH of 6.62–6.86 (Holle et al. 2018).

Related ferments

Safety

Queso fresco keeps a high pH and high moisture, and Listeria monocytogenes grows in it even at 4 °C. CDC counts unheated queso fresco-type cheese, even from pasteurised milk, as a risk for people prone to listeriosis, and says to heat it to 165 °F (74 °C) or until steaming. Raw-milk queso fresco has carried staphylococci, coliforms and Salmonella. Pasteurise the milk, keep the cheese at 40 °F (4 °C) or below, and eat it within a week.

Hazards the sources name: Listeria monocytogenes, which grew at least 2.5 log cfu/g in 14 days at 4 °C in every US brand tested; Coagulase-positive staphylococci and coliforms, high in raw-milk cheeses; Salmonella and other taxa associated with enteric contamination, found by sequencing in artisanal fresh cheese from Sinaloa.

History and sources

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

Latin-American families have made queso fresco from fresh raw milk for generations. In the United States, the WSU Extension recipe was first written in 2000 for the Abuela Project, in which grandmothers in eastern Washington taught families to make it from pasteurised milk; the authors report a rapid fall in Salmonella illness in Yakima County afterwards.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [wsu-pnw539] Powers-Hammond L. 2019, Fresh Cheese Made Safely, Pacific Northwest Extension publication PNW539 (Washington State University, Oregon State University, University of Idaho), revised November 2019gov
  2. [holle2018] Holle M.J., Ibarra-Sánchez L.A., Liu X., Stasiewicz M.J., Miller M.J. 2018, Microbial analysis of commercially available US Queso Fresco, Journal of Dairy Science 101:7736–7745 (abstract)paper
  3. [renye2008] Renye J.A., Somkuti G.A., Vallejo-Cordoba B., Van Hekken D.L., Gonzalez-Cordova A.F. 2008, Characterization of the microflora isolated from queso fresco made from raw and pasteurized milk, Journal of Food Safety 28:59–75 (abstract)paper
  4. [garcia2026] García Guerrero J.T., Peinado Guevara L.I., Campista León S. 2026, Microbial ecology of artisanal fresh cheese from Sinaloa, Food Microbiology 138:105073 (abstract)paper
  5. [cdc-listeria] CDC, Preventing Listeria Infection (web page, accessed 2026-10)gov