Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Cheese from Mexico

Requesón (Mexico)

A boundary entry, set by heat and acid rather than by fermentation. Whey left from cheesemaking is heated to about 90–96 °C, a little acid and salt are added, and the whey proteins rise as fine curds that are left to settle. The curds are drained in a cloth for a couple of hours and kept cold.

Fully documentedCheese2.7 hWhey cheese under Mexican standard NOM-243-SSA1-2010Family: Whey cheese (heat-precipitated whey protein) family

Recipe

Requesón (Mexico), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Comte0, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No fixed amounts recordedThe amounts are from a lab method based on Inda (2000), per weight of whey. Yield was about 6.46 kg of requesón per 100 kg of whey.
Sweet cow whey left from cheesemaking (the lab study used whey from Chihuahua cheese)[ramirez2017][nom243]
Citric acid, 0.1%[ramirez2017]
Salt, 1%[ramirez2017]
Starternone; set by heat and acid

Total time across the recorded steps: 2.7 h

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
pH 6.4–6.4

What changes: Sweet whey left from cheesemaking goes into the pot

Step 1 of 6
Collect the whey
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
pH 6.4–6.4
Measured

The standard calls for pasteurised whey. A cited method advises whey at pH 6.3–6.6 before heating, for the best yield.

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 entry, set by heat and acid rather than by fermentation. Whey left from cheesemaking is heated to about 90–96 °C, a little acid and salt are added, and the whey proteins rise as fine curds that are left to settle. The curds are drained in a cloth for a couple of hours and kept cold. Made in 6 steps over 2.7 h. The longest step, drain in a cloth, takes 2 h (Ramírez Rivas I.K 2017). Salt is 1 % (Ramírez Rivas I.K 2017).

Key numbers
Main step2 hReported[ramirez2017]Drain in a cloth
Temperature90–96 °CReported[ramirez2017]Heat the whey
Salt1 %Reported[ramirez2017]Add acid and salt
AciditypH 4.5Reported[ramirez2017]Add acid and salt

What makes this one different

Mexico's ricotta. It is made from the whey of other cheeses by heat and acid, not by rennet or fermentation, from the whey proteins left after another cheese's curd is taken out.

Yield
About 6.46 kg per 100 kg of whey in one lab study; about 47 g per litre in an earlier report
Class
Listed among the whey cheeses (quesos de suero) in the Mexican dairy standard

Related ferments

Safety

Mexican rules define whey cheese as made from pasteurised whey, set by heating in an acid medium, then salted, drained and moulded, and require Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes to be absent in 25 g. The cheese is kept cold. The US CDC says people at higher risk of Listeria infection, including pregnant women, people 65 or older and people with weak immunity, should avoid unheated requesón, even when it is made with pasteurised milk, unless it is heated to 165 °F (74 °C) or until steaming hot.

Hazards the sources name: Salmonella, which the Mexican standard requires to be absent in 25 g of whey cheese; Listeria monocytogenes, which the Mexican standard requires to be absent in 25 g of whey cheese.

History and sources

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

Mexico's dairy standard NOM-243-SSA1-2010, published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 27 September 2010, defines whey cheese (queso de suero) and requires it to be refrigerated. A 2014 UNAM thesis on artisanal requesón from the State of Mexico states that most requesón in Mexico is made at artisanal level, because the informal product costs far less than the formally sold one.

  1. [nom243] Secretaría de Salud (Mexico), Norma Oficial Mexicana NOM-243-SSA1-2010, milk, dairy products and derivatives, sanitary provisions and specifications (DOF 27 September 2010), definition 3.50 and classification 4.4.1.4gov
  2. [ramirez2017] Ramírez Rivas I.K., Chávez-Martínez A. 2017, Efecto del ultrasonido aplicado al suero de leche previo al calentamiento en la elaboración de requesón, Interciencia 42(12):828-833paper
  3. [villegas2014] Villegas Liahut S. 2014, Evaluación de la conformidad con la normatividad mexicana (NOM) de requesón artesanal elaborado en el Estado de México, bachelor's thesis, Facultad de Estudios Superiores Cuautitlán, UNAMarchive
  4. [cdc-listeria] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Preventing Listeria Infectiongov