2-Ingredient Mozzarella Cheese In Minutes! No Rennet Recipe

Greetings, my beautiful lovelies. It's Emmy, how are you? It's great to see you and welcome back. Today's video is sponsored by Helix Sleep. Helix Sleep are the makers of premium mattresses that are customized to suit your specific needs and delivered very conveniently right to your doorstep. So you can take the Helix Sleep quiz like I did and it will match you with the perfect mattress. For example, I happen to be a side sleeper. I prefer a firmer style mattress and I share my bed with my husband. So he too took the Helix Sleep quiz and the quiz matched us with the perfect compromise of both of our needs and preferences. And we matched with the Helix Sleep Dusk Luxe. We've had our mattress now for a couple years and we're getting terrific sleep. We wake up feeling well-rested and our backs feel supported. I really appreciated that it came rolled up in a cardboard box delivered right to our door, which made it really easy to get up a narrow flight of stairs. 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Big thanks to Helix Sleep for sponsoring this video and for their continued support so I can make better videos for all of you. All righty, my lovelies. Today, we're going to be making two-ingredient cheese. More specifically, we're going to be making a mozzarella-style cheese with two ingredients, milk and vinegar. Now, if you count salt, it's technically three ingredients, but when it comes to salt and pepper, I kind of don't count them as an ingredient. At any rate, you can salt your cheese or not. I will put a playlist down below of many cheese-related recipes, including a cheesecake that looks like a wheel of cheese and potato cheese and mozzarella cheese as well. That one, I actually used rennet, which is found in the stomach of a calf and it's what coagulates or curdles the milk into curds. And that's what you separate to make the cheese. But today, we're not going to be using rennet. We're going to be using vinegar. I love all these processes and techniques that allow you to extend your harvest, whether it be milk or tomatoes or beef. How many different ways can you preserve it so you can eat it for as long as possible? As I mentioned, the two ingredients are milk and vinegar. Vinegar, this is just plain white vinegar. If you don't have vinegar, you can substitute lemon juice. Both of them have about the similar kind of pH, which is acidic. We need it to be acidic because we want the proteins in the milk to curdle or to separate out from the whey or the liquid portion of the milk. And we're gonna collect all those little protein pieces into a mass called cheese. So the style of mozzarella cheese that we're going to be making today is a fresh style. It's more similar to buffalo mozzarella, which originally was made with buffalo milk. Has a softer texture, and it has a nice fresh milk flavor and a nice stretch to it. So I've got a half a gallon of whole milk. I'm gonna add to my saucepan. And my pitcher was not big enough, so hence the two measuring devices. I believe you can use low-fat milk if you like, but it's gonna taste better if you use whole. Also, try not to get ultra pasteurized milk. I've heard that it will not curdle as well. Cheese making is a pretty incredible process to see something liquid turn into a solid. I think I was first introduced to the process on an episode of Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers or Reading Rainbow, one of those incredible shows that showed you how things are made. And I remember seeing that transformation. And specifically, I remember little balls of mozzarella being tied into cute little knots and just being so romanced and entranced and intrigued by the whole process and just wanting to try that so badly. That was before you could buy fresh mozzarella and bocconcino in the supermarket everywhere. I mean, this was back in like the early 80s. So I set it for 115, knowing that we wanted 120. Mozzarella, of course, is an Italian cheese. I forgot to mention that. Next, we're going to add about a half a cup of white vinegar right into the milk. And immediately, you see a reaction. See those chunks that are beginning to form? That's exactly what we want. Look, isn't that amazing? Already we have curds. So we've covered our milk and vinegar mixture and we're gonna let it rest for about 15 minutes. And then we'll come back to finish up our cheese. All righty, my loves, we are back. It has been 15 minutes since we let this concoction rest. And this is what it looks like. I've got a strainer here and I happen to have some cheesecloth. And now you know why it's called cheesecloth. If you don't have cheesecloth, you could just use a clean dish towel. Amazing. Place it into the cheesecloth to drain. Now in this stage, this is more like a ricotta. So now we're gonna use our hands to squeeze out more of the extra whey. I've also made homemade cream cheese with this almost identical process. At this point, you would blend this in a blender or a food processor to get it really silky smooth. Now we're gonna place this in the microwave for 30 seconds to heat it up, to further remove excess whey and to begin the stretching process. Now we're gonna knead the cheese and it's quite hot. So I'm gonna put on some gloves to give my skin some protection from the heat. See how it's getting stretchy already? So you pull it. Oh, it smells great. It smells like fresh milk. Knead it and see how it's kind of lumpy, but as we stretch it and pull it, it gets smoother. You can use cheese salt. I'm gonna be using kosher salt. I'm gonna use about a quarter of a teaspoon of salt. Sprinkle it and knead it in. So now we're going to chill it in a bowl of cool water. I'm gonna add some ice cubes to this and just let it chill before we slice it. All righty, my lovelies. I am back with my cool cheese and I think I'm gonna try this again. I have a half a gallon of milk and more vinegar. I'm gonna try this again because the texture of my finished cheese just isn't quite right. Super soft. It's not stretchy. Just doesn't look right. I think one of the things that I might've gotten wrong was that my milk didn't stay hot enough. I noticed when I had combined the vinegar and the milk together, after that had sat for 15 minutes, my milk was still cloudy. In some of the other videos, I've seen the whey looked much more clear and yellow, but not as opaque. So I don't think the residual heat was enough to get all of the proteins out of the whey, out of the milk. I suspect that was part of the problem. I also suspect I added the salt too early. Some of the other recipes I saw, they put the salt on the finished cheese, not when they're kneading it because I noticed immediately when I added salt, when I was trying to knead the cheese, it kind of just fell apart and no longer was stretchy. So I think that's where I went wrong as well. Milk is at 120. Now we're going to add our vinegar. It's about a half a cup. And immediately it starts to curdle. Look at that. It's like magic, it's so cool. I'm going to just reduce the heat, kind of maintain this heat. Look, immediately I'm noticing a difference in the color of the whey. See how it's yellow and clear rather than being kind of opaque? Last time it looked a lot like milk still, but this is much clearer, right? More of the proteins have come out. And it doesn't have to sit nearly as long. Before I had it sitting for about 15 minutes. This is all ready to go. So this time I'm just going to use a colander. Grabbing our spider. Look at that. Isn't that marvelous? Into here. Beautiful. And the whey is transparent. It's not cloudy or milky. And the amount of cheese I've gotten is much more significant. Look at that. And we're just going to use our spatula and press any excess whey out. And just knead it. So it's still kind of shaggy, but I'm hoping with more of this kneading that it will get smoother. So last time I microwaved it. Ooh, did you hear that thunder? Gonna place this in the microwave for 30 seconds to heat it up. Okay, putting on some gloves so I don't burn myself. It is smoothing out. Oh, so cool. Look. Yes, this is what I wanted. Yes, this is working. Look how shiny it's getting. Yes, this is correct. Yes, look at that. Look how tight it's getting with each subsequent pull. So this was about 30 seconds in the microwave, and I'm getting it nice and tight at the bottom. And it's getting really beautiful and tight. Yes, I'm so happy. I'm so glad I tried again. Oh, it's perfect. Yes, yes, yes. Cool it down. And this is for safety reasons, I believe, because you don't want to harbor any bacterias. All right, let me clean this all up, and then we'll finally give our cheese a taste. Yes! All righty, my lovelies, let's finally taste our homemade cheese. So here's our second batch. I saved our first one so just so we can have a little comparison and see, you know, how we improve things. This cheese is not fully cooled. You can serve it warm at room temperature or have it chilled. It slices better, apparently, when it's cold. So here it is. Look how perfect it is. Isn't it beautiful? I'm so happy about that. Compare that to the first one I did. Look, definitely knew something was wrong. I did not add any salt to this, and I will add salt when I'm ready to eat it. So beautiful. Isn't that beautiful? Yes! I'm gonna sprinkle a little bit of salt. All righty, my lovelies, itadakimasu! Mm! Oh, that's so nice. Creamy, rich, fresh. It tastes of fresh milk and cream. It's so delicious. I actually like it with the flecks of salt on top. A little bit of crunch, and the salt is nice and intense. So this is a fresh mozzarella cheese, so it's soft and flexible. This is similar to what you would get in a caprese sandwich with tomatoes and basil, a little bit of olive oil, sometimes some balsamic vinegar. So very delicious. Perfect for summer. Mm, a little bit sweet from the milk. So, so good. That's how you can make two-ingredient mozzarella cheese. Once you get the technique down, it's absolutely simple and scrumptious. And once you make it, you can keep it in the refrigerator, wrap it tightly in some plastic wrap for about a week, and have it in a sandwich, have it on pizza, have it however you like it. One gallon of milk, which is about five or six dollars in my area, will make two nice big balls of cheese. When you buy them in the supermarket, it's about five bucks just for one ball itself, and they're a little bit smaller. Vinegar is very inexpensive, so definitely cost-effective. And once you get the technique down, doesn't take much time at all. Highly recommend this one. Just don't put the salt in until later. And make sure you maintain that 115, 120 degree temperature window. Oh my gosh, what a rainstorm. All righty, my lovelies, thanks so much for watching, and big thanks to Helix Fleet for sponsoring this video. They are currently hosting a Memorial Day sale. You can receive 30% off their Elite and Lux lines along with two free pillows, or take advantage of their 25% off site-wide sale. Thanks again for watching. I hope you enjoyed that one. I hope you learned something. Please share this video with your friends. Follow me on social media. Like this video, subscribe, and I shall see you in the next one. Too-da-loo, take care, bye! Bye!