Could you shred your own cheese and quit buying bags of pre-shredded cheese?

 

Shredding your own cheese takes a little extra time, but it makes your meals healthier. I haven’t bought pre-shredded cheese in years. When you shred your own cheese, you can avoid the fillers and preservatives that are added to store-bought, pre-shredded cheese to keep the pieces separated.

So how do you shred your own cheese and avoid those fillers and preservatives? Here are my tips.

Use smaller blocks of cheese

You will want to use a block of cheese that easily fits your cheese grater. I buy 8-ounce blocks of cheese from Aldi. You could also cut a smaller chunk from a larger block of cheese. This allows you to buy in bulk but use a manageable size for shredding.

Shred only what you need for a recipe

If you are used to having an open bag of pre-shredded cheese in the fridge to pull from for recipes, this may be hard for you. This was the hardest part for me when I first started shredding my own cheese.

I shred what I need for a meal and store the rest of the block in a zip bag in the fridge until I need to shred or slice some more. All of my cheese blocks have lines on them from being used with a shredder, unless the last thing I did was cut cheese slices. I do that pretty often too!

I’ve had good luck with shredding cheese a couple of hours in advance when I store the shreds in a sealed container in the fridge. I don’t recommend prepping ahead much more than that when using freshly shredded cheese.

Use a cheese grater you like

If you use a lot of cheese like I do, you will want a cheese grater that you like and that is easy to clean. I have 2 shredders. One shreds directly into a storage container, and one is a box grater that shreds cheese onto a plate.

Here are 2 shredders similar to what I use: boxed grater on Amazon and cheese grater with airtight storage container on Amazon. These can also be used for vegetables, but I use them most for cheese.

Clean the shredder right away

Most times I don’t actually wash my cheese grater. As soon as I am done shredding cheese, I run the cheese grater under hot water and rub off all the cheese residue with my hands. The hot water melts the cheese and rubbing rinses it away.

It is important to do this before the cheese remnants have a chance to dry and harden. Otherwise you’ll likely need to soak and wash the shredder. Most times one (or both) of my cheese graters can be found sitting in my dish drainer because I use them so often.

Make it as easy as possible to shred your own cheese

I simply cut open a block to shred. When I am done shredding what I need, I fold over the original wrapper of the cheese and stick the block in a zip bag in the fridge. Often times I will have multiple partial blocks of cheese in a bag because I go through a lot of cheese.

Yes, shredding your own cheese takes a little more time and effort. If you make it easy and clean your shredder right away, it is worth it for making meals healthier. Especially if you like cheese as much as I do!

Have you tried shredding your own cheese?