Homemade cheese never appealed to me. Curdling the milk, straining with cheesecloth and numerous other steps seemed messy and time consuming. I’ve looked into several varieties – yogurt cheese seems easy to make but a bit expensive overall. Then I found quark. Quark is a European fresh soft cheese with a mild flavor and similar in texture to whipped butter or ricotta cheese. It’s actually the most popular cheese in Germany and there are a million uses for it, from pancakes to cheesecakes and souffles. In addition, it’s naturally low in fat with only 0.2g fat per serving. It’s difficult to find prepared quark in stores, but it takes very little work to make and costs less than $2 per batch. It’s a wonderful cheese, give it a try, you won’t be disappointed.
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1 quart cultured buttermilk (1% fat)
1/4 cup skim milk, as needed
kosher salt, to taste
glass baking dish
kitchen towel, linen or cheesecloth
strainer or colander
Directions:
1. Set oven to 150F. Pour buttermilk into the baking dish and cover with a lid or tinfoil. If the lid is plastic or rubber, make sure it’s dishwasher safe – if so, it should be fine at 150 degrees in the oven. Place the dish in the oven and let it sit overnight, or about 8-12 hours.
2. In the morning, remove the dish from the oven. Place the strainer in the sink or a large pot and line it with the linen. Spoon or pour the contents of the baking dish into the strainer. You’ll notice that the curd (solid) has partially separated from the whey (liquid). Cover the cheese with the ends of the cloth and let it drain in the sink for 30-60 minutes. To speed up the process, fill a bowl or sealed container with water and place on top to weigh it down. 30 min seemed sufficient for my batch.
3. Dump the contents into a bowl and refrigerate. Once chilled, add milk 2T at a time until it is smooth and easy to spread with a texture similar to creamy ricotta cheese. Add salt to taste. Makes 8oz or about 1 to 1-1/2 cups.
| Nutrition Facts |
|---|
| Serving Size 1/2 cup Servings per Batch 3 |
| Amount Per Serving |
| Calories 65 |
| Total Fat 0.2g |
| Saturated Fat 0g |
| Total Carbohydrate 4g |
| Dietary Fiber 0g |
| Sugars 3g |
| Protein 11.5g |
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I’m determined to try it this week!!!
Hahaha, this is awesome!
I adore Quark cheese, so I’ll have to try this one out. Thanks!
hmm… there is no peanut butter in this, which throws me a little bit… but still interesting!
Haha, not yet! I’m going to try working on flavors for this cheese, perhaps a pb one! ~ Nick
I’ve never tried Quark, but I love fresh soft cheeses. I’ve gotten into quite the cheese-making habit lately. I made mascarpone, ricotta and I had a depressing little attempt at making cottage cheese. I’ll try this one next. I like that it’s low fat, since all of the ones I made before were… uhmm, not exactly!
Oh, I meant to tell you, I had a brilliant PB idea yesterday during my run (why do I think of food while I run?) have you attempted PB deviled eggs?! They must be yummy :)
Yea, I like how this one is naturally low fat but it doesn’t taste it at all! They say running clears the mind, it must make room for more important things like peanut butter ideas. I think the PB deviled eggs would be great, my friend recently told me how his family has always made egg salad with peanut butter and he won’t have it any other way. Unfortunately, I can’t stand the yellow parts of hard-boiled eggs but perhaps stuffed with pb and something else…. ~ Nick
I am impressed! :)
this is awesome! thanks for the recipe
wow less calories per 1/2 cup than low-fat cottage cheese!
That’s estimated of course, but nothing is as dense as cottage cheese! Actually, if you compare nonfat cottage cheese and nonfat greek yogurt, you’ll see that they are identical nutritionally except that cottage cheese is 33% denser hence more calories, albeit healthy ones. ~ Nick
Yum. They sell lemon quark at my Farmer’s Market – maybe you could flavor this one too? I believe they also sweeten it with sugar and it becomes a sweet dessert spread.
There are definitely flavoring possibilities here. I’m working on vanilla flavored quark, that’s my favorite of the ones I tried at the farmer’s market in San Fran, it’s great on a sauceless veggie pizza. ~ Nick
That is too easy. Great recipe and definitely worth a try. Can you use other milk besides buttermilk? Skimmed? Soy?
Well, the cultures in dairy milk are necessary to produce the cheese curds, so soy is not an option. Skim is possible but you still need to use some buttermilk for the cultures. But the buttermilk is already very low in fat (equivalent nutritionally to 1% milk) and it seems that most of that fat is removed during the straining process.
Yum! Vanilla sounds great. funny – I think we’re talking about the same vendor in SF :)
Probably, Spring Hill Farms? Their lemon is good but the vanilla is excellent! ~ Nick
This sounds great! I have a yogurt maker so I guess I could make it in there? Do you have to buy buttermilk with added cultures, or could you add a little yogurt like a yogurt starter?
Looks like it’s just waiting for a bagel or a nice crunchy piece of celery….
x x x
WOW, I’m definitely going to try this! I just have to convince my mom to let me keep the oven on overnight; she’s cheap. I’m sure once she tastes the quark, though, she’ll let me make this anytime.
Thanks!
I don’t think you’ll use all that much energy to maintain a very low temperature like that, especially since you won’t be opening it a million times. Plus you can double or quadruple the batch to make it more worth it. Enjoy! ~ Nick
Quark, my 11yo loves quark mixed with cream thickly topped on bread for breakfast. The way his great grandmother in Germany makes it for him. I also make it, but I just use milk. That is it. I let the natural yeasts in the air culture it. I was taught by my husband’s grandmother some years ago.
Now we have a local artisan dairy, Appel Farms, that makes a lovely product so we support them instead :)
Nice post! Everyone should try making cheese, it is rewarding.
Ah, Appel Farms, I wish I could find their products but no place around here sells it. You use regular milk, like skim milk? And just let it sit out open to the air? ~ Nick
I had never heard of that cheese let alone how to make it, but it sounds easy enough. I’ll give it a try and see how it turns out :)
I have seen a few recipes that called for quark cheese though I have never seen it in stores. Now I can make some at home.
Thank you for this–who knew? We had the most delicious crepes with quark cheese at Bouley Bakery in NYC.
very kewl! does it compare at all to farmers cheese?
What is farmers cheese? ~ Nick
I never heard of quark before! I would love to try it. It sounds delicious!
Do you think it would be possible to make this cheese in a slow cook? Just a bit scared leaving the oven on for so long.
Love your site.
Cheers!
Hey Helena, I have two suggestions. First, try making it on the weekend. Put it in the oven in the morning and wait for 8 hours while you’re home. Otherwise, I recommend trying this recipe for farmers cheese which I believe is pretty similar: http://foodurl.info/pgeh. Thanks for stopping by! ~ Nick
Been seeing this frequently lately and have no idea what it is. This will be very useful.
Thanks Nick, this is the easiest way yet! I am German born and miss my Quark! We use it for cheese cake and all kinds of pastries at home. There is a thing called a “Quark Maker” on the market, it cost around $50 and it’s sooo lazy, but I can’t find it anymore! The most basic use for Quark, was on Friday nights, my Father is Catholic and (way back was not allowed to eat meat on Friday) my Mom fixed him this snack: 8oz Quark (but the original, more dry version) salt, pepper to taste and 2 or 3 tablespoons of fresh chopped chives, to this he preferred fresh Whole Weat or Rye bread … after all he is was baker! I have tons, and I mean TONS of German recipes requiring quark! I used to use Ricotta Cheese, but it doesn’t work out as well, and you don’t want to try making 2 lbs cottage cheese smooth! No fun!
Thanks Nick,
Ok, I know that you said you didn’t like to strain things. However, take plain yogurt and strain through a cheesecloth for 5-7 hours. Homemade cream cheese :)
Tons of nice Quark recipes. Very useful site.
I made this in the warmer drawer of my oven. My regular oven couldn’t be set that low. The warming drawer worked fine. I think I drained it to long. It was pretty dry. I did add 2 Tablespoons on plain yogurt to my 2 quarts of buttermilk since it didn’t say if it was cultured or not. Ikea has recipes that I wanted to try that called for it.
i am glad to find this recipe. the budwig cancer protocol calls for quark and flaxseed oil. i will give it a try. thanks.
Interesting… Well I hope you enjoy it and I hope it helps!