Raw cottage cheese is a great way to help use up extra raw milk. This specific recipe keeps the raw aspect throughout the whole process which is great since it is probably one of the main reasons you’re consuming raw milk in the first place.

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Most of my recipes are on the topic of bread or things to do with fresh milled flour. Learning about food being best in it’s most natural state has sent me down a new rabbit hole of learning about the benefits of raw milk. You can find more info on raw milk over at my friend’s Dearmark23 blog here.

There are a lot of recipes that have you heat the milk to 180 degrees F and add in vinegar to curdle your milk to make your cottage cheese. I have searched high and low for a way to keep it raw and finally learned this from an Amish woman. **eekk**

What Will I Need?

Raw Milk – I have only tried this with raw cow’s milk, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work with raw goat’s milk. Not sure where to find raw milk? Check the raw milk finder.

Stockpot – My pot fits a gallon comfortably. You can scale this up or down depending on how much you want to use.

Meat Thermometer – I have this one and find it to be more accurate compared to my candy thermometer to check the temperature of the higher clabber and the bottom closest to the flame. You will notice your curds start to change texture around 105-110 degrees F. The batch that I found that I preferred the digital thermometer was still on the softer side when my candy thermometer said it had reached 115 degrees F. So it yielded a very soft cheese that was more like a ricotta texture. Thankfully there’s really some sort of use for any type so there really isn’t a waste if you “mess up” as you learn. We enjoyed it in lasagna after that mishap.

Cheesecloth/Nut Milk Bag – I really like this nut milk bag for straining since it’s a little thicker and durable than my cheesecloth straining bags I tried.

Heavy Cream – To keep it raw use your raw skimmed cream. This is added back to give it it’s moist texture. If you can’t keep enough cream on hand and it has to be store-bought it’s not the end of the world. The majority is still raw. Totally your preference and what you have available.

What is Clabbered Milk?

If you are new to raw milk the coolest thing is that it “doesn’t go bad”. You can clabber it or it will naturally sour, but compared to commercial pasteurized milk it is still usable in cooking and baking when it’s clabbered or soured.

Clabbered milk is a naturally fermented milk product. You can set any amount of milk on the counter with a loose fitting lid and let it naturally ferment for at least 2-3 days. You will know it’s ready when it thickens and looks like yogurt.

I have to admit I was very weirded out by the idea of letting milk sit at room temperature and then eating it…..but I finally decided to at least give it a shot. From what I’ve been reading it should still smell pleasant and it actually does. It smells like a sweet cream cheese. If it smells foul or putrid then don’t consume it.

You can skim the cream off or leave it to clabber with the milk. If you leave it on, when it’s done you’ll have something comparable to a fresh, raw sour cream to spoon off of the top and use for tacos! The neat thing about raw milk is finding so many ways to use it and not waste it.

What Can I Do With Extra Whey?

After you use your clabber and have whey left, that can be used in baking, smoothies, or fed to animals. If I have too much I will soak alfalfa pellets in the whey and feed to my chickens and goats.

You can find more creative detailed ideas here.

**Fun Fact**

The Clabber Girl name brand comes from the word “clabber”, a type of sour milk. In the early 1800s, people mixed clabber with pearl ash, soda, cream of tartar, and a few other ingredients to make what we know today as baking powder. The first baking powder brand by Hulman and company was the “Milk Brand”. In 1899, it was changed to the “Clabber Brand”. In 1923, the company changed the name to “Clabber Girl”.

How do I make Raw Cottage Cheese?

This is probably one of the most simple things you can make. It doesn’t matter how much or how little clabber you want to use for the process.

After you have made your clabbered milk you will put it in a stockpot. My pot comfortably fits a gallon.

homemade cottage cheese being heated on stove — Heat until 115 degrees F

Heat on low until it reaches 115 degrees F. Stirring occasionally. Overstirring will just cause smaller curds.

Once it reaches temperature remove from heat and strain in cheesecloth or a nut milk bag. Then hang it over a big bowl and it usually takes an hour until it is done dripping.

cottage cheese curds straining in nut milk bag over a bowl of whey — Strain the curds from the whey.

Move the curds to a bowl and break them up, add the heavy cream to moisten the mixture. Then add salt to taste.

Pouring raw heavy cream into cottage cheese curds. — Add salt and heavy cream.

With a gallon of raw milk it will yield about a quart of cottage cheese and it takes about 1 cup of heavy cream to moisten.

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Meat Thermometer

Cheesecloth or Nut Milk Bag

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