Pressed uncooked cheeses

A farm cheese made by the monks of Cîteaux Abbey from the whole milk of their own Montbéliarde herd, thermised rather than raw. The milk is set with rennet and lactic cultures, and the small pressed, uncooked cheese ripens three weeks in cellars at 12 °C.

Size

11 cm across, 2.5 cm high, about 720 g

Output

More than 400 tonnes of milk a year from 240 hectares, made into 70 tonnes of cheese

1. Thermise the milk
2. Add cultures and rennet
3. Mould and press
4. Ripen in the cellar21 days · 12 °C

Safety: The milk is thermised, not pasteurised, and the cheese ripens for three weeks.

• Wikipédia (fr), Abbaye de Cîteaux (marque)

Also called Aschbacher Magerkäse, Formaggio Aschbach magro.

Aschbacher Magerkäse is a lean, semi-cooked cow cheese made from milk half skimmed for butter. The pasteurised milk is soured with starter, set with calf rennet at 32 °C, cut to maize-kernel size and cooked at 38 °C, then moulded, brined and ripened at least 30 days. It has a soft, elastic paste with many round eyes.

Rind

Clean, smooth, light brown, no cracks

Size

Ø 25 cm, height about 8 cm, about 5 kg

1. Skim half the milk and pasteurise
2. Add starter and calf rennet32 °C
3. Cut the curd
4. Cook the curd38 °C
5. Mould and brine
6. Ripenat least 30 days

Safety: The milk is pasteurised before cheesemaking.

• ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Formaggi), technical sheet Aschbacher Magerkäse (Formaggio Aschbach magro)
• Ministero delle politiche agricole, Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali (L. 238/2016 art. 12), Allegato I, Provincia autonoma di Bolzano, no. 26 (copy hosted by informacibo.it, 2018)
• ONAF, scheda formaggio 'Aschbacher magerkäse' (id 797)

Also called Boule de Belp.

A modern Swiss cheese from Belp, created in 1989 by cheesemaker Peter Glauser. Fresh raw cow-milk curd is mixed with mild Swiss garlic, rolled into balls and coated in ground black pepper. It is sold soft and fresh, or dried until very hard and shaved like a truffle.

1. Make the fresh curd
2. Mix and roll
3. Coat in pepper
4. Dry (aged type)3–3.5 months

Safety: Made from raw milk. The fresh type is sold young with no ageing, and the gold type is dried for several months. The US FDA says ageing raw-milk cheese for 60 days may not eliminate or adequately reduce E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella, and Listeria may grow in some cheeses during ageing.

• Wikipedia (de), 'Belper Knolle'
• US Food and Drug Administration 2016, FY 2014–2016 Microbiological Sampling Assignment Summary Report, Raw Milk Cheese Aged 60 Days

Bethmale is a Pyrenean tomme from the Couserans in Ariège, made mainly from cow's milk and also from sheep's, goat's or mixed milk. The name also stands for a simple traditional method that shepherds once used in the summer pastures right after milking. The paste is airy, with a hazelnut taste.

Milk

Mainly cow milk; sheep, goat or mixed versions exist

1. Make the curd straight after milking
2. Mould the tomme
3. Ripen

• Ariège Pyrénées Tourisme, «Bethmale et fromages ariégeois, tout savoir sur le fromage d'Ariège»

A salty sheep cheese packed in fir bark. Sweet caș, the fresh rennet curd of sheep milk, is cut small, salted and mixed by hand in a large wooden bowl, then stuffed into bellows of fir tree bark. It is very lightly smoked and takes a pine-resin flavour from the bark.

1. Cut and salt the caș
2. Knead
3. Pack into fir bark
4. Smoke lightly

• Wikipedia, Brânză de coșuleț

Pasteurised cow milk from local dairies is set with a ripening culture and rennet, the curd is cut to rice-grain size, blocked, milled, hand-packed into moulds, pressed and brined overnight. When dry, the cheese is covered by hand with frozen wild nettle leaves, which draw natural moulds, and it ripens up to five weeks under a white bloom.

Milk

cow milk, pasteurised

Ripening

Up to 5 weeks

1. Pasteurise and set
2. Cut the curd small
3. Block, mill and mould
4. Press and brine
5. Wrap in nettles
6. Ripenup to 35 days

Safety: The milk is pasteurised.

• The Cheese Atlas, 'Cornish Yarg: Cheese Wrapped in Nettle Leaves'
• Food Manufacture 2010, 'Dairy doubles output of nettle and garlic Yarg'

A semi-soft cheese made from the raw summer milk of cows grazing the south-west tip of the Dingle Peninsula, with dulse seaweed (dillisk) mixed into the paste. Its natural rind is washed with brine and whey as it ripens. The seaweed marbles the paste a dark garnet colour and adds a light salty taste.

Rind

Natural washed rind

Awards

Supreme Champion at the first Blas na hÉireann National Irish Food Awards (2008)

1. Prepare the summer milk
2. Add dulse to the curd
3. Ripen and wash the rind

Safety: Made from raw milk. The US FDA says ageing raw-milk cheese for 60 days may not remove E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella, and Listeria may grow in certain cheeses during ageing. The CDC says people at higher risk, including pregnant women, people 65 or older and people with weak immunity, should avoid cheese made with raw milk unless it is heated to 165 °F (74 °C) or until steaming hot.

• Ireland Guide, 'Dingle Peninsula Cheese'
• Azure Azure, gastronomy article on the Irish cheeses Cashel Blue, Dilliskus and Croghan
• Taste Kerry, producer directory: Dingle Peninsula Cheese
• US Food and Drug Administration 2016, FY 2014–2016 Microbiological Sampling Assignment Summary Report, Raw Milk Cheese Aged 60 Days
• US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Preventing Listeria Infection

Also called formaggio della paglia, formaggio alto.

Formaggio della paglia is a soft, strong-smelling cow cheese from the alps of Fusio in the upper Valle Maggia, once wrapped in rye straw and exported to Italy. The milk is warmed only gently, set with rennet in about 30 minutes, broken into large grains and put into hoops without pressing. One producer still makes it, ripening it about two months in a temperate cellar.

Size

4–5 kg; about 25 cm diameter, 7–8 cm high

Season

Made at the start of the alp season and for Christmas; found only from August to October, at Fusio

1. Warm the milk gently
2. Set with rennet30 min
3. Break into large grains
4. Fill hoops without pressing
5. Salt
6. Ripen in a temperate cellar2 months

Safety: The Swiss inventory says the milk is warmed but not to a high temperature, and the soft wheels ripen about two months in a cellar. It does not say the milk is pasteurised, so treat this soft cheese as a raw-milk cheese. ANSES advises pregnant women, young children, people over 65 and people with weak immunity not to eat raw-milk cheeses other than cooked pressed ones such as Gruyère or Comté, because of Listeria, Salmonella and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli.

• Kulinarisches Erbe der Schweiz / Patrimoine culinaire suisse, national inventory entry 'Formaggio della paglia', no. 46 (Ticino)
• Rennis P. 2024, Il formaggio della paglia, una rarità gastronomica dell'alta Vallemaggia, RSI (Swiss Italian public broadcaster), 22 August 2024
• ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)

Also called Fourme de Rochefort, Fourme fermière de Rochefort.

Fourme de Rochefort is a farm cheese of raw whole cow milk from the Puy-de-Dôme. The milk is renneted right after milking, the curd (tome) is milled, salted, moulded and pressed for about a day, and the cylinders ripen for about 45–60 days. A producer said in 2018 that about ten producers make it, and a ripening cooperative, La Fourmontoise, was reported in 2013.

Size

Cylinder about 7 kg, 29 cm diameter, 10 cm high

Output

About 100 tonnes a year through the La Fourmontoise cooperative (2013); about 120 tonnes a year in Wikipedia

1. Rennet the milk after milking
2. Mill the tome
3. Salt the milled curd
4. Mould and press24 h
5. Ripen in the cellar45 days – 2 months

Safety: The cheese is made from raw milk and ripens only about 45–60 days. ANSES names Listeria, Salmonella and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli as the main raw-milk cheese hazards. It advises pregnant women, people over 65, people with weak immunity and young children not to eat raw-milk cheeses, except cooked pressed ones such as Comté.

• Wikipédia (fr), Fourme de Rochefort-Montagne (revision of 2 February 2026)
• L'Auvergne Agricole 2018, Les Fermiers d'Or, une vitrine d'excellence pour la fourme de Rochefort, Pleinchamp (20 June 2018)
• Bignon E. 2013, Développer un fromage local grâce à un partenariat entre lycées, Réussir Lait (6 December 2013)
• ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)

Gaztazarra (gazta zaharra, old cheese) is a Basque and northern Navarrese spread made by leaving old Latxa sheep cheese to ferment in a small clay pot for two months or more, sometimes with milk, water or liquor such as pacharán. Some older gaztazarra is kept as the mother for the next pot. It is strong and peppery.

Milk

old S cheese (Latxa), optionally with Latxa milk, water or pacharán/aguardiente

Ripening

in a small clay pot, ≥2 mo

Rind

none; soft, creamy spread

Size

pots of 100–250 g

Made like Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette).

• Wikipedia (es), 'Gaztazarra'

Källarlagrad getost is a raw goat-milk cheese from the Stengärde goat farm in Jämtland, made to a grandmother's recipe and ripened in an earth cellar built in the mid-19th century. The cellar's temperature and humidity let moulds of several colours, red among them, grow on the rind.

Milk

goat milk, raw (unpasteurised)

Ripening

in an earth cellar built in the mid-19th century; moulds of several colours, notably red, grow on the rind

Ripening time

Sigrid Kuusiniemi of the farm says it takes three to six months

Culture

Sigrid Kuusiniemi says she makes her own culture from milk warm from the goat and filmjölk (soured milk)

Made like Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette).

Safety: It is made from unpasteurised goat milk. Raw milk and products made from it can carry germs such as Campylobacter, E. coli, Listeria and Salmonella.

• Nordstjernan, 'Gourmet cheese from Jamtland'
• US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Raw milk

Also called Μαστέλο, Mastelo®.

Mastelo is a soft, white, chewy cheese from Chios, made from cow or goat milk. It is sold for grilling, like halloumi.

Milk

Cow milk; goat-milk versions also exist

Type

Soft, white, chewy grilling cheese

Behaviour in storage

In a challenge test at 7 °C, Listeria monocytogenes survived on Mastelo but did not grow, which the authors put down to competing microbes and/or low pH or water activity

Made like Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette).

Safety: In a laboratory test at 7 °C, Listeria monocytogenes did not grow on Mastelo but was not always eliminated, so it should be kept cold.

• Kapetanakou A.E., Gkerekou M.A., Vitzilaiou E.S. and Skandamis P.N. 2017, Assessing the capacity of growth, survival, and acid adaptive response of Listeria monocytogenes during storage of various cheeses and subsequent simulated gastric digestion, International Journal of Food Microbiology 246:50-63 (abstract)
• Facaros & Pauls Greek food decoder, 'Mastelo'

Murol, or Grand Murols, is an uncooked pressed cow-milk cheese from the Puy-de-Dôme, created by Jacques Bérioux in the 1920s and 1930s and made much like Saint-Nectaire. A hole is punched out of the middle of each 450 g wheel, and the plug is made into a tiny cheese of its own, coated in red paraffin, called Murolait. It ripens for about a month.

Milk

cow milk

Ripening

about 1 mo (5–6 wk)

Size

about 450 g; 12 cm across, 3.5–4 cm high, 3 cm central hole

Made like Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette).

• Wikipédia (fr), Murol du Grand Bérioux

A Belgian organic semi-hard cheese of raw cow milk, set with animal rennet and salted with sea salt. Its natural rind carries a red smear of Brevibacterium linens; the paste is creamy and mild. It is a brand product, documented only by an importer's product sheet.

Rind

Natural red smear rind (not edible)

Size

Flat wheel, about 2–2.3 kg

1. Prepare the milk
2. Set the curd
3. Mould and salt

Safety: Made from raw cow milk. CDC says eating products made from raw milk can expose people to germs. Its Listeria guidance tells pregnant women, newborns, adults 65 and over and people with weakened immune systems to avoid any cheese made from raw milk unless it is heated to 165 °F (74 °C) or until steaming hot.

• Kaasimport Jan Dupont nv, product specification 1400634 'Pas de Rouge Bio', version 17/11/25
• US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Raw Milk (31 January 2025)
• US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Preventing Listeria Infection

Also called Passendale, Passchendaele cheese, Passendale Classic, Groot Hof.

Pasteurised cow milk from local farms is made into a round, loaf-shaped cheese that is shaped by hand in linen cloths and ripened slowly in the maturing cellar. It has a brown or golden rind with white spots and a creamy, mild, slightly sweet paste with small holes.

Milk

Pasteurised cow milk from local farms

Shape

Round, like a farmhouse loaf

1. Take local cow milk
2. Shape by hand
3. Ripen slowly in the cellar

Safety: It is made from pasteurised milk.

• Toerisme Zonnebeke, « Passchendaele Classic » (visitor information page)
• Wikipedia, Passendale cheese (outline)

A semi-hard cow milk cheese of the Val Pusteria, made from pasteurised whole or part-skimmed milk with mesophilic lactic cultures and powdered calf rennet at about 32 °C. The curd is broken to pea size, semi-cooked at 40 °C, moulded for a day and brined about 48 hours. It ripens 60–90 days at 10–12 °C.

Rind

Smooth, soft, elastic; straw, light brown or brown, with white moulds

Size

Ø 40 cm, height 10–11 cm, 10–14 kg

Fat

About 45 % fat in dry matter (full-fat) or about 35 % (semi-fat)

1. Inoculate and set32 °C
2. Break the curd
3. Semi-cook1 h · 40 °C
4. Mould24 h
5. Brine2 days · 18 % salt
6. Ripen2–3 months · 10–12 °C

• ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Formaggi), scheda 'Pustertaler bergkäse (Formaggio di montagna della Val Pusteria)'

Small goat milk cheeses of the Beiras in three types. Fresh cheese is made from heat-treated goat milk set with animal rennet and moulded with gentle hand pressure; dry cheese is unsold fresh cheese salted on the surface and air-dried; cured cheese is made and ripened like ewe cheese.

1. Prepare the milk
2. Set the curd
3. Cut and drain the curd
4. Mould and salt
5. Ripen

Also called Queijo de cabra algarvio, Algarve goat cheese, queijo de cabra fresco do Algarve.

A small fresh goat cheese of the Algarve, made from the milk of the local Algarvia goat breed. A 2016 press report on a record-size cheese gives the normal fresh cheese as 160/180 g, and names milk, salt and a little cardo as the ingredients of the record cheese.

Normal fresh cheese

160–180 g

Made like Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette).

• Município de Castro Marim 2016, Maior queijo fresco de cabra de raça algarvia saboreado na Terra de Maio (news item of 23 May 2016)
• Mendonça C. 2016, Maior queijo fresco de cabra de raça algarvia concorre ao Guinness, Postal (22 May 2016)

Goat milk is filtered, boiled, cooled and set with cardoon, with some salt added to the milk. The curd drains in cloths and is pressed into small hoops. Most is eaten fresh; the seco gets a little more salt, is dried on cane racks and is kept in olive oil or under salt. The boiled milk means the fresh cheese is set by cardoon enzymes rather than by fermentation.

1. Filter and boil the milk
2. Cool and add cardoon
3. Drain in porous cloths
4. Fill the hoops and salt the outside
5. Dry the seco on cane racks
6. Keep under olive oil or salt

Safety: The milk is boiled before making, and the fresh cheese is eaten within a few days. If herbs go into the oil that keeps the seco, the CDC says to refrigerate homemade oils made with garlic or herbs and to throw them away after 4 days.

• US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Botulism Prevention

A fresh goat milk disc from the Alicante mountains, salted lightly and drained in moulds with ridged sides that once were woven esparto grass. It is eaten fresh or kept in brine.

Rind

Barely any

Size

About 0.5 kg; about 15 cm disc

1. Prepare the milk
2. Mould and salt
3. Ripen

• Wikipedia (es), 'Queso blanquet'

A pressed farm cheese of cow milk from the Bolivian Chaco. Rennet sets the warm milk; the curd is stirred, cut and salted little by little, then packed into a cloth-lined wooden mould with holes and pressed under a weighted lid for about a day.

1. Prepare the milk
2. Set the curd
3. Cut and drain the curd
4. Mould and salt24 h

• Engormix forum 'Cómo fabricar quesos' (producer from Camiri)

A fresh cheese made from pasteurised whole milk of cows and sheep set with animal or microbial rennet. The curd is moulded but never pressed, so it keeps small holes where the grains do not fully join. It has no rind and is eaten fresh, with a mild, milky, slightly sweet taste.

Rind

None; smooth, moist white surfaces with mould shapes or cloth marks

Shape

Cylinder

Fresh cheese

Spanish law defines queso fresco as cheese ready to eat as soon as it is made

1. Prepare the milk
2. Set the curd
3. Cut and drain the curd
4. Mould without pressing

Safety: The milk is pasteurised. In a 1988 trial on Burgos cheese made from pasteurised ewe milk, two Staphylococcus aureus strains added to the milk grew mainly during storage, more at 10–15 °C than at 4 °C, and passed 10⁸ cfu/g. The trial looked for enterotoxins C1 and C2, the toxins these strains make, and detected none, but keep the cheese cold.

• Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentación (Spain), press release 'La Unión Europea registra la nueva Indicación Geográfica Protegida Queso de Burgos', 10 September 2025 (read via the web.archive.org copy)
• Real Decreto 1113/2006 of 29 September, quality standards for cheeses and processed cheeses, BOE 239 of 6 October 2006 (definition of queso fresco)
• AgroNews Castilla y León, 'Queso de Burgos IGP reconocida'
• Otero A., García M.C., García M.L., Prieto M., Moreno B. 1988, Behaviour of Staphylococcus aureus strains, producers of enterotoxins C1 or C2, during the manufacture and storage of Burgos cheese, Journal of Applied Bacteriology 64:117-122 (abstract)

Also called formatge de cassoleta, queso de Burriana, saladito valenciano, queso de Puzol.

A small, salty fresh cheese of goat, cow or sheep milk, or a mix, pressed into a little volcano-shaped mould, the cassoleta, that was once made of olive wood. It is white, tender, moist and rindless.

Shape

Small, round, volcano shape from the cassoleta mould

Size

About 200–500 g

Rind

None; white, tender, moist paste

1. Start with the milk
2. Set with rennet
3. Cut and drain
4. Press into the cassoleta
5. Salt

• Wikipedia (es), «Queso de cassoleta» (outline only)

Also called queso de Taramundi, El Carballo, Taramundi cheese with walnuts and hazelnuts.

A pressed cheese from Taramundi in western Asturias, made plain (cow and goat milk per Turismo Asturias, raw cow milk per Wikipedia) or from cow milk studded with hazelnuts or walnuts. Turismo Asturias describes milk set with rennet at about 30 °C, a rice-sized cut, stirring while the curd warms, two hours of pressing, a short brine and at least two months of ripening at 10–12 °C.

Size

Cylinders of 500 g or 1 kg (Turismo Asturias); 600 g or 1 kg (Wikipedia)

Rind

Thin, cream-coloured

1. Warm the milk and add rennet30–31 °C
2. Cut and stir while warming20 min · 45 °C
3. Mould and press2 h
4. Brine5–10 h
5. Dry5–6 days · 10 °C
6. Ripenat least 2 months · 10–12 °C

• Vivir Asturias, «Queso de Taramundi» (credits Turismo Asturias)
• Wikipedia (es), «Queso de El Carballo» (outline only)

Also called queso de freír, queso frito (when cooked), queso blanco (Dominican), Dominican frying cheese.

Queso de freír is a firm, salty white Dominican cheese with a very high melting point, so slices hold their shape when fried. Fried, it is queso frito, part of the Tres Golpes breakfast.

Milk

cow milk

Moulding and salting

pressed, salted firm white curd

Ripening

none; fresh

Made like Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette).

• Dominican Cooking, 'Queso frito'

A fresh pressed cow milk cheese of the Veracruz Sotavento lowlands, made from milk, salt and rennet. The whey is pressed out by hand and the salted curd is wrapped in cleaned wetland leaves (platanillo, popal), which slow moisture loss in the hot coastal climate.

1. Prepare the milk
2. Set the curd
3. Mould and salt

• DairyNews.today, 'Veracruz's Queso de Hoja combines dairy tradition with wetland leaves'

Also called Queso de Pría, Ahumado de Pría.

Queso de Pría is a semi-soft pressed cheese of pasteurised cow milk with sheep cream added. The milk is set with natural rennet at 30 °C, the curd is cut, moulded, pressed 24 hours and brined, then ripened one to two months. The best-known form, Ahumado de Pría, is then smoked over oak and beech.

Rind

Hard, smooth, brown

Size

Cylinders of 500–800 g (small) or 1.5–2 kg (large)

Fat

45 %

1. Add sheep cream to the milk
2. Set with natural rennet30 min · 30 °C
3. Cut and reheat the curd35 °C
4. Mould and press24 h
5. Brine and air-dry
6. Ripen30 days – 2 months
7. Smoke over oak and beech

Safety: The milk is pasteurised before cheesemaking.

• Vivir Asturias, 'Queso de Pría Ahumado' (cocina asturiana)
• Wikipedia (es), 'Queso de Pría'

Also called formatge de tovalló.

A Valencian cheese of goat, sheep or mixed milk whose curd is drained and pressed in a knotted napkin instead of a mould. The knot leaves a nipple-like knob on top of the squarish globe. It is eaten fresh or cured.

Rind

White (fresh) to light yellow (cured); cloth weave visible

Size

≤2 kg; squarish globe

1. Prepare the milk
2. Press in the napkin
3. Ripen

• Wikipedia (es), 'Queso de servilleta'