When you splurge on a cheese that's $20 per pound, you're going to want to keep it fresh for as long as you possibly can. But that doesn't mean you have to spend another $9 for a box of cheese papers. In fact, you can preserve cheese well with products you probably already have at home.
Cheesemonger Jordan Edwards gives Epicurious some education about storing cheese and verifies what we've suspected all along: that you don't need to be spending money on that fancy box of papers. Instead, you can re-create the effect of cheese papers by wrapping your cheese in wax paper, then following that with a layer of plastic wrap.
Covering cheese directly with plastic wrap, however, is a very bad idea, and placing your cheese in plastic zip-top bags is even worse:
The problem with plastic is that cheese is in a constant state of change. There's evaporation happening, and plastic wrap doesn't let humidity out. So the cheese sort of sits in water.
Turns out those wedges of cheese at the store that are tightly sealed in plastic are taking on a plasticky flavor, too. To save it, he suggests taking the cheese out of the plastic and giving the cheese a light scrape to remove the outer layer.
Learn more about selecting, storing, and eating cheese—including what to do if you don't have wax paper on hand—by heading over to the link below.
Buying, Wrapping, and Eating Cheese — The Right Way | Epicurious
Photo by Rebecca Siegel.
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