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Cheese from South Asia, Latin America, Ethiopia, Yunnan

Acid-heat set cheese family (FERMENTATION BOUNDARY)पनीर

Heat-acid cheeses are made by heating milk and curdling it with an acid such as citric acid. The hot curd is drained and pressed, and the whey proteins stay bound in the curd. This is a boundary entry, since acid alone is not a fermentation, but some members use soured whey or buttermilk, which is.

Fully documentedCheese2.5 h – 3.6 h

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceNo batch size is stated. The figures describe a pilot-scale paneer standardisation in the review and a 150 kg lab queso blanco batch.
Whole cow or buffalo milkSkim milk yields a very hard-bodied paneer[kumar2014]
Acid coagulantCitric acid as a 1 % solutionAdded slowly to hot milk; lactic acid, tartaric acid, alum and sour whey are also named as coagulants[kumar2014]
Salt1.0 % of the curdAdded to the curd in the lab queso blanco[kim2017]
Starternone when citric acid or another food acid sets the curd, which is not a fermentation; sour whey or sour buttermilk as the acid is a fermentation

Total time across the recorded steps: 2.5 h – 3.6 h

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countYeastsMoulds82 °C

What changes: The milk is heated to 82 °C and then cooled to 70 °C

Step 1 of 4
Heat the milk
Time
5 min
Reported
Temperature
82 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts
Moulds
Lactic acid bacteria

Output: hot milk.

Flavour
cooked milk
Texture
liquid
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Khan and Pal's review says coliforms, yeasts and moulds in raw milk are destroyed by 82 °C for 5 min

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Heat-acid cheeses are made by heating milk and curdling it with an acid such as citric acid. The hot curd is drained and pressed, and the whey proteins stay bound in the curd. This is a boundary entry, since acid alone is not a fermentation, but some members use soured whey or buttermilk, which is. Made in 4 steps over 2.5 h – 3.6 h. The longest step, chill in cold water, takes 2–3 h (Kumar S 2014) and runs at 4–6 °C (Kumar S 2014). Salt is 1 % (Jeong H.J 2017). Lactobacillus helveticus, the most common lactic bacterium among isolates from the acid whey used to make dairy fan in Yunnan and Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus, L. paracasei and L. casei, Limosilactobacillus reuteri and L. sakei, and Lactiplantibacillus curvatus and L. plantarum strains from Ethiopian fermented milk, added as starter cultures in a lab study of ayib do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step2–3 hReported[kumar2014]Chill in cold water
Temperature4–6 °CReported[kumar2014]Chill in cold water
Salt1 %Reported[kim2017]Drain and press
AciditypH 5.2–5.3Reported[kumar2014]Add the acid

What makes this one different

Set by heat and acid with no culture and no ripening, so it is not a fermentation unless the acid comes from soured whey or buttermilk.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Paneerpressed block; cow or buffalo milk; citric acid or another food acid; no fermentation
  • ChhenaNo pressure is applied to remove the whey; used for sweets such as rasogolla and sandesh (FAO 1990); no fermentation
  • Ayib (Ethiopia)fermented buttermilk is warmed gently (50–60 °C in one lab method) to part the curd, so it is a fermentation product

Made the acid-heat set cheese family way

Other acid-heat set cheese family kinds

Made the same way, each with what its own sources record.

Dhakai paneer

Cheese from Bangladesh, Dhaka

Dhakai paneer is the paneer of Dhaka, Bangladesh. We could not open a source that describes how it is made.

Gjizë

Cheese from Albania

An acid- and heat-set curd, often made from yogurt, rather than a rennet cheese, and drained dry rather than ripened.

Sources: TasteAtlas; Wiktionary

Munajuusto (egg cheese)munajuusto

Cheese from Finland

Set with eggs and soured cream near the boil rather than with rennet, and sweetened with sugar; the only fermentation is the souring of the cream.

Base
Cow milk, eggs and soured cream, set by heat
Ripening
None; eaten fresh

Sources: Pehkonen K 2024

Zieger (Formaggio fresco aromatizzato)Zieger

Cheese from Italy, Trentino-Alto Adige, province of Bolzano

It is not ripened by a culture. Hot skim milk is curdled with vinegar or citric acid, and the flavour comes from the herbs and pepper kneaded in. It is shaped as a small hand-made cone.

Rind
None; a mould bloom when mature
Size
Small cone, about 0.150 kg
Boundary
The modern curd is set by heat and acid, not by microbes

Sources: ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters); Ministero delle politiche agricole; ONAF; US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Safety

Paneer cannot be kept more than a day at room temperature in the tropics, and about 7 days at 6–8 °C. Its spoilage comes from microorganisms growing on the surface. India's PFA rules allow at most 70 % moisture and require at least 50 % fat on dry matter. The review says heating milk at 82 °C for 5 min destroyed coliforms, yeasts and moulds, but they can return from unsterilised utensils, unclean water or packaging during chilling and packing.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Kumar and colleagues write that a solid mass eaten in the Kusana and Saka Satavahana periods (AD 75–300) seems the earliest reference to paneer. Khan and Pal say paneer was probably first introduced into India by Persian and Afghan invaders, and spread beyond the north-west only in the last five decades.

  1. [kumar2014] Kumar S., Rai D.C., Niranjan K., Bhat Z.F. 2014, Paneer - An Indian soft cheese variant - a review, Journal of Food Science and Technology (PMC4008736)paper
  2. [khan2011] Khan S.U., Pal M.A. 2011, Paneer production - a review, Journal of Food Science and Technology (PMC3551056)paper
  3. [kim2017] Jeong H.J., Lee Y.K., Ganesan P., Kwak H.S., Chang Y.H. 2017, Physicochemical, Microbial, and Sensory Properties of Queso Blanco Cheese Supplemented with Powdered Microcapsules of Tomato Extracts, Korean J Food Sci Anim Resour 37(3):342paper
  4. [liu2009] Liu W. et al. 2009, Analysis of microbial composition in acid whey for dairy fan making in Yunnan by conventional method and 16S rRNA sequencing, Current Microbiology (abstract)paper
  5. [asefa2025] Asefa Z., Tesfaye A., Desalegn A., Daba T., Haile T. 2025, Formulation and evaluation of probiotic starter culture - impact on Ethiopian cottage cheese Ayib, One Health Outlook (PMC11978027)paper
  6. [fao-tmp] FAO 1990, The technology of traditional milk products in developing countries, FAO Animal Production and Health Paper 85, section 7.5.5 (Chhanna)book