Storing cheese so it neither dries out nor spoils

Do not wrap it tight in plastic film

Cheese is alive and still ripening. Sealed against plastic film it cannot breathe, the moisture it releases has nowhere to go, and the surface turns slippery. Worse, the face in contact with the film takes on a plastic smell — that taint is the first thing cheesemongers complain about. Waxed or greaseproof paper, loosely wrapped, is the right answer: it lets a little moisture out while stopping the cheese from drying through. If you must use film, keep it off the cheese itself — one layer of paper first, film loosely over the top.

Why proper cheese paper has two layers

Unwrap the paper a cheese shop uses and you will find it is two-ply. The outer sheet is wax- or plastic-coated to stop the cheese drying out; the inner one is a thin breathable film that lets escaping moisture and gas pass through. Together they reproduce the conditions of a ripening cave: damp, but never stagnant. Those are the conditions cheese grew up in over several centuries. Knowing the principle, you can approximate it at home — paper around the cheese, and a box that is covered rather than sealed.

Improvising with what is already in the kitchen

No waxed paper? Greaseproof or baking parchment does the job. Even a layer of kitchen roll with film draped loosely over it works well, because the paper absorbs surface moisture while the film prevents drying — the same two-layer logic. Just change the kitchen roll every couple of days; left damp, it encourages exactly the mould you were avoiding. A plastic box is fine, provided you rest the lid on rather than clicking it shut.

The vegetable drawer is the best spot

The door swings through a temperature change every time you open it, and the back wall, where the cold air arrives, is far too drying. The vegetable drawer is the steadiest and most humid part of most fridges, which makes it the right home for cheese. The ideal is somewhere around 4 to 8°C (39 to 46°F) — slightly warmer than a general fridge shelf, and closer to a ripening cave. Paper first, then a loosely covered box, and fridge smells stay out. If anything powerfully aromatic shares the shelf — kimchi, cut onion, last night's curry — that box is not optional.

Different types, different lifespans

More water means a shorter life. Fresh cheese lasts two or three days once opened, bloomy rinds about a week, semi-hard cheeses two to three weeks, and very hard cheeses well over a month. If you eat cheese only occasionally, buying at the firm end is a strategy in itself. Burrata is the absolute exception: eat it the day you buy it. Even one night in the fridge slackens the cream inside and toughens the outer skin. The only real solution is to buy it on the day you plan to eat it.

Ordered from shortest-lived to longest:

Smells travel

Leave a pungent cheese uncovered and the milk and butter beside it will end up smelling the same. Washed rinds and blues belong in their own sealed box. The traffic runs the other way too: mild cheeses absorb whatever is around them, and the fatty, low-aroma ones like cream cheese and mascarpone are the most absorbent of all. Simply wrapping each cheese in its own paper changes how they taste. It sounds fussy until you have done it for a few weeks.

Better kept in a box of their own:

Cheese that arrives in brine should stay in it

Feta and halloumi come submerged in salt water for a reason — do not pour it away. Returned to their brine they stay moist and last far longer. If the liquid runs low, dissolve a teaspoon of salt in a cup of water and top it up. Mozzarella is the same: leave it in the liquid it came in. If the salt is too assertive, soak the piece in cold water for twenty or thirty minutes, but do it immediately before eating — desalting in advance shortens its life considerably.

Do not pour away the liquid these came in:

When mould appears

On a hard cheese, cut at least 2.5 centimetres (an inch) around and below the mould and the rest is fine — there is too little moisture for it to penetrate deeply. Keep the knife away from the mould itself, and re-wrap in fresh paper afterwards. High-moisture cheeses are different: fresh cheese, cream cheese, cottage cheese and anything pre-grated or pre-sliced should be discarded whole, because the mould may already run through them. And on a bloomy-rind cheese like brie, any colour that is not the original rind — green, black, pink — means throw it out. (US Department of Agriculture guidance)

One you can cut past, ones to throw out whole:

If it smells of ammonia

A sharp, stinging smell from an opened brie or camembert means it has ripened past its best. That is not the same as spoiled, but the good window has closed. If it is mild, unwrap the cheese and leave it fifteen minutes and much of it blows off. If it persists, cook with it rather than eating it plain — baked and spread on bread, or melted into a pasta sauce, the aroma softens considerably. The smell concentrates at the surface, so shaving the rind thinly often reveals a perfectly good interior.

Where this smell turns up most:

Can you freeze it?

You can, but it will not come back the same. Ice crystals cut through the structure, so it weeps and turns crumbly on thawing. Cheese you plan to eat as it is should not be frozen; cheese destined for cooking can be grated or diced and frozen quite happily. What decides it is moisture, not the name on the label. A hard cheese like cheddar holds little water, so fewer ice crystals form; it turns crumbly but the loss barely shows once it is melted, and grating or dicing it before freezing helps further. Mozzarella splits within its own name: the fresh kind sold in water is too wet to survive it, breaking up and weeping on the thaw, so leave that one alone. Low-moisture shredded mozzarella for pizza, by contrast, suffers essentially no penalty, since it was going to be melted anyway. Soft cheeses and blues do not recover either way. Thaw slowly in the fridge rather than on the counter.

Two that freeze very differently:

Reviving cheese that has dried out

On a hard cheese, shave off the dried face thinly and the interior is intact. Keep the trimmings for stock — a parmigiano rind dropped into soup releases a remarkable amount of savour, and you simply fish it out afterwards. Pieces too dry to eat can be grated into a jar and kept for pasta and gratins, so nothing is wasted. If the drying is slight, wipe the surface with a damp cloth, re-wrap in fresh paper, and leave it a day; it recovers surprisingly well.

These can be brought back:

Four habits cover almost everything

Wrap in paper, keep it in the vegetable drawer, separate the strong from the mild, and look at it once a week. That last one matters more than it sounds — cheese pushed to the back of a fridge gets forgotten, and forgotten cheese gets thrown away. Keep it where you can see it and you will actually eat it. Writing the purchase date on the wrapper removes the other half of the problem. One marker pen solves it permanently.