For the Cottage Cheese Girlies
and the cottage cheese curious
Big day, friends: it’s a three-fer.
That’s right. I am so smitten with cottage cheese and the multitude of curds it contains that one recipe wasn’t enough. Two was too neat. Three—three stretched my imagination and led to a trio of recipes (linked here if you want to skip ahead) that make it possible to eat a different cottage cheese recipe morning, noon, and night. I know, it’s almost too much.
Justice for cottage cheese is almost cliché. The “diet platter” with the scoop of C.C. perched on a lettuce boat. Who has seen it? Does it exist? Is it in fact a piece of anti-C.C. propaganda masquerading as nostalgia?! We don’t know.
I grew up in a Breakstone’s house, and to be honest cottage cheese wasn’t my fave. I would certainly choose yogurt first, given the choice. My dad is a large curd guy and also enjoys eating ricotta from a bowl, ice cream-style; very pro-dairy. My mom kept cottage cheese pancakes in the weekend rotation, admittedly not my favorite, but there were also cottage cheese scrambled eggs that were very popular (she says now, and we believe her).
Let’s skip a few decades so I can make a blanket claim. Cottage cheese’s glow-up, I believe, took hold when Good Culture Cottage Cheese came on the scene.1 A revelatory product that isn’t just plain creamy, it has the slight lactic tang of yogurt, and the curds are delightful in every way. I was still working at Bon Appétit at the time, and the amount of cottage cheese we all consumed in that kitchen would surprise and perhaps delight you.
Fast forward again to the summer of 2021, when cottage cheese became a key player in my lunches. I was in the process of dropping around 20 pounds of pandemic weight and while this is not a diet post, I used cottage cheese in an almost-daily meal that I loved and that kept me full, and I make it to this day. That’s the Savory Cottage Cheese Salad seen above, a textural medley, the key to which is taking your time cutting the cucumbers and tomatoes so that they 1.) feel special aka “make it nice,” and 2.) fit on your spoon. Yep, a spoon salad.
I turned my dear friend
onto this concoction, and while the two of us use the same ingredients, her assembly requires a FORK, which we discuss in today’s video. I’m going to attribute that creative intervention to the fact that she’s from Australia and therefore everything she does is upside down and backwards.
Moving on! If Savory Cottage Cheese Salad is all about the curds and how they play with juicy, crunchy, and crisp things, then this Turkish-Style Egg is all about obliterating the texture of the cottage cheese, providing a bridge for the curd-averse to join the fun. I was inspired by the yogurt-esque flavor in a good cottage cheese (or, specifically in Good Culture Cottage Cheese, which once again did not accept my invitation to work with me on this series, but I’m not at all bothered by it!!!).
If you’ve never had Turkish eggs, it’s a Persian cat perched atop a silk pillow kind of a dish: swirls of shiny yogurt cradling a bouncy poached egg, usually topped with a red chile oil. By whipping the cottage cheese with some yogurt, I minimized the presence of curds, much as my favorite mattifying primer does for my skin texture on shoot days. Adding some crunchy-shattery things like shards of fried bread and brown-butter toasted walnuts keeps everything from devolving into baby food. I am so into this one!
For the third and final CCC2 I started with two words that are so great together: Salad Sandwich. A lot of my recipes start this way—just a title. In yet another concession to the curd-averse, I (brilliantly) turned cottage cheese into a Ranch-flavored schmear. If you didn’t know, you’d think it was cream cheese or maybe Boursin punched up with lemon, herbs, and garlic. But it’s not, it’s CCR, Cottage Cheese Ranch.3 This situation requires a layering of ingredients, famously depicted by me in this infographic so I could remember what I was doing when I wrote the recipe.
I tried this on toasted Dave’s Killer Bread 21 Whole Grains and Seeds (below; the thin-sliced gave me California Veggie Sandwich vibes and I liked it!). In the end, pivoted to a sesame bagel because it could hold more stuff. The CCR mixture easily lasts 10 days in the fridge, one of those hard-working condiments that you are 100% psyched to see when you need something easy, filling, delicious, and versatile. So many post-workout lunches were had at my place!
Here we are, deep into Q2, and I’m still evolving my 2024 goals: Sleep, Routine, Protein. I wrote about work routines last week, and I’m still into my professional concept! Cottage Cheese is an excellent source of protein, and we love to have three new recipes in rotation (I would eat each of these at any meal period).
Sleep … we are “working on it.” For example, last week I listened to a podcast instead of bringing my phone into the shower with me to watch a show on YouTube while I washed my hair.4 Growing, learning, evolving, optimizing: it never stops.
So much love—
CLM
Trust that I invited the brand to be part of this recipe series and video, since I was making it anyway and using their product in all of my development. But this content is purely editorial! And that’s okay!
Cottage Cheese Creation, ofc.
Deepest apologies to Creeence Clearwater Revival.
Can’t believe I just admitted that in “public.”
Equal parts cottage cheese and olive salad makes a delish salad dressing for a chunky, messy, extra-savory salad.
I became a cottage cheese girlie when I saw your “What I Eat Everyday” video and it changed me!!! So excited to try all these out.