[SOLAR_FIELDS]

I’ve really enjoyed using sodium citrate lately as an emulsifying agent to make things like queso and Mac’n’cheese. Once you start using it you’ll never want to use velveeta (or its better tasting older sister restaurant variant Land O Lakes melt) again. The other day I was making mac with it and found some funky foot smelling chunks of “queso fresco” (Mexican crumble cheese) in the fridge and decided to include them in my regular cheddar/Gruyère mix. These had just started to take on a little too much extra moisture and had that characteristic “funky but not rotten” smell. My god, that extra funk took the Mac from “really good” to “divine”.

[hellotheretoday]

I will second the sodium citrate recommendation. It should be in every kitchen if you make food with cheese that is melted. Cheap, crazy long shelf life, very easy to work with.

Adding a bit of sodium hexametaphosphate is good if you want to make cheese slices or blocks of cheese. Increases the firmness of the final product a bit and slices easier.