Why does Indian cuisine only use one type of cheese, paneer?

Why does Indian cuisine only use one type of cheese: the white cheese we call paneer? By contrast, in North America, we have a variety of cheeses: pepper jack, colby jack, havarti, gouda, yellow cheddar, white cheddar, blue cheese, feta, and whatever delicious processed stuff is in Kraft Singles.

Paneer is a non-aged, non-melting white cheese made from cow’s milk or buffalo’s milk. Paneer comes from the Hindi, Urdu, and some other North Indian languages word which generically refers to any type of cheese.¹ Of course, when paneer was adopted into English, it came to describe only the white cheese used in Indian cuisine.

Paneer is used in a variety of dishes such as saag paneer, malai kofta, and paneer pakoras.

We’ll come back to specifics about paneer in a minute, but first let’s talk about what categorizes different types of cheese so we understand how paneer is unique.

What is cheese

Cheese is a food that predates recorded history. Scholars don’t know where cheese was invented, but they think it was either Europe, Central Asia, or the Middle East. The earliest proposed date for cheesemaking is around 8000 BCE when sheep were domesticated.⁹

It’s difficult to classify cheese because organizations and scholars disagree about how to categorize cheese. Some categorize based on the type of milk used, such as cow, sheep, buffalo, or goat milk. Others categorize based on the type of starter. And still others categorize based on moisture content. The International Dairy Federation has 51 varieties of cheese, but other organizations have hundreds or thousands of varieties.¹⁰

The most basic process of making cheese involves separating milk into solid curds and liquid whey. This is done by adding an acid to milk.⁹

How to make paneer

Paneer is actually a very simple cheese to make. It is one you can make at home pretty easily, which I’ve done before and maybe you or your parents have too.

Start by pouring milk into a pot and bring it to a gentle boil.

When the milk comes to a boil, turn off the stove, Then quickly add 2 tablespoons of an acid, such as vinegar, lemon juice, or yogurt. Stir for a minute or two.

The milk will start to curdle and the solid curds will separate from the liquid whey.

Place cheesecloth in a colander and pour the curds and whey into the cheesecloth. The curds will stay in the cheesecloth while the whey drains out.

You can pour cold water on the curds to get rid of the acidic smell and taste.

Collect the curds in the cheesecloth and squeeze to drain excess liquid.

Then, try to drain even more liquid. You could hang it over the sink to get a nice round shape. If you want a block, you can set it under a heavy pot or textbooks. Wait about 4 hours.

After a few hours pass, unwrap the curds from the cheesecloth and you should have paneer.¹¹

This is actually pretty similar to how cottage cheese is made with the major difference being that paneer required pressing the moisture out to leave a block or ball of cheese while cottage cheese is left as individual curds with liquid.¹⁴ That’s why many western resources generalize paneer as an Indian cottage cheese.

Other types of cheese

In contrast, other cheeses have different processes.

For example, cheddar cheese adds a mesophilic culture to the milk and heats the milk at a relatively lower 86 degrees Fahrenheit for over an hour. Then a liquid rennet is added which are enzymes usually from an animal’s stomach. The milk starts to separate into curds and whey after several minutes. Then the curds are collected and cooked at a low, slowly increasing temperature. Next, the whey is drained out, followed by heating for about three hours, and salting the curds.

Almost done. The curds are pressed into the final shape.

The last step is to age the cheddar in a room around 55 degree Fahrenheit with 80% moisture. Aging can take 3-9 months.¹²

Can you see how making cheddar has a lot more steps and specific temperature and ingredient requirements than paneer?

Paneer vs other cheese

Going back to what I said in the intro, paneer is a fresh acid-set cheese. It is a non-aged, non-melting cheese.¹

Breaking that down, fresh cheese means that paneer spoils fairly easily, usually within a week without any preservatives. An unopened wheel of cheddar can last for several months. Acid-set cheese means that paneer is made with an acid such as lemon juice, vinegar, or yogurt. Cheddar is a ripened cheese which means it uses rennet.¹³ Non-aged cheese means that paneer is not aged the way cheddar is. Cheddar sits in a temperature controlled room for months before it is ready to eat. Non-melting means that paneer doesn’t melt in heat. Of course, cheddar will melt.

History of paneer

The origin of paneer is not definitively known. Scholars also aren’t sure when cheese entered Indian cuisine. For example, texts and legends about Krishna refer to other dairy products like milk, ghee, and yogurt, but there is no mention of cheese. Hindus date Krishna’s life to 3100 BCE because his death marked the start of the Kali Yuga.⁷ Historians date Krishna’s life to before 1000 BCE when the earliest texts about Krishna were written.⁶ Either way, cheese likely didn’t exist in Indian cuisine until the 1st millennium BCE.

The earliest definitive mention of cheese in India is from the Lokopakara, a vegetarian cookbook written by the Jain ruler Chavendaraya in modern day Karnataka, or at least written by someone in his court.⁸ This text dates to 1025 CE and discusses how to make a type of cheese for sweets. There are many other ancient cookbooks and texts that reference cheese after this, such as the Manasollasa from 1130 CE. Although, these cheeses may not have been like our modern day paneer.

Most scholars believe paneer arrived in India from Persia under Muslim rule. Texts from the Delhi Sultanate around 1200 CE is the first known reference to a modern-day-like paneer. This theory makes sense since the word paneer comes from Persian.¹

Other South Asian cheeses

Do any other cheeses exist in Indian cuisine? Well, given that India is roughly the size of continental Europe, there is a huge variety to Indian cuisine. So yes, there are a few other types of cheeses in Indian cuisine.

Chhena² (also chenna) is perhaps the second most used cheese in India. It is made by adding lemon juice and a type of salt called calcium lactate instead of the animal product rennet and then straining out the whey. It is similar to a western style farmers cheese which is usually characterized as a bit plain. The major difference between paneer and chhena is that chenna is kneaded while it is still warm which results in a smoother final cheese. Paneer is just pressed which makes it firm and solid. Chhena is popular in Bengali cuisine although many other parts of India consume chhena. In India, there is a legal requirement that chhena has a moisture content between 50 and 70%. Chhena is very popular for desserts such as ras malai, rasgulla, and sandesh.¹⁶ It can also be used in savory dishes such as a stuffing in paratha or naan.

Kalari² is another South Asian cheese, specifically in the Udhampur district of Jammu. It is a stretchy white cheese and as a result is known as the mozzarella of Jammu. Kalari is popular in the hot summer months of the mountainous region to preserve milk. It is often salted and sauteed in its own fat before eating. A modern recipe is to eat kalari as the middle layer of a burger style sandwich.¹⁷ It is pretty rare to find this cheese outside of Jammu although you can sometimes find restaurants serving it in major Indian cities.

Chhurpi² is a cheese from mountainous Northeastern India such as Ladakh, Darjeeling, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh as well as Nepal and Bhutan. There are two varieties: hard and soft. Soft chhurpi is more like ricotta cheese. It is similar to hard chhurpi, but some of the whey is included during production so the finished result is soft. The hard variety is one of the hardest cheeses in the world. The finished product looks to have the hardness of parmesan, but is usually in a rectangle, not a wheel. Hard chhurpi is made by pressing hard on the curds to remove as much liquid as possible. Chhurpi has a mild and neutral taste. Sometimes it is left to ferment to get a tangy taste. Both varieties of this cheese is made by starting with buttermilk, which is the leftover liquid from making butter. Hard chhurpi is eaten like gum. The eater puts it in their mouth and lets it moisten. It will eventually become soft and chewable. One piece of hard chhurpi can last an hour or two. Soft chhurpi is usually consumed in savoury dishes or as a soup.¹⁸ One popular use is as the filling in a dumpling called momo served with aachar.¹⁹

Bandel² (Ban-dle) is a cheese that originated from the Portuguese colony Bandel in modern day West Bengal 500 years ago. Even today it is rare to find bandel commercially available because production is only in West Bengal and usually made by artisans except for the The Whole Hog Deli company. It is made by separating curds and whey using lemon juice. Then it is molded into short, stocky discs. Bandel is salty, dry, and crumbly. It comes in two varieties, white which is unsmoked and brown which is smoked.²⁰

Khoa² (koi-ah) is a South Asian dairy product used in Indian, Nepalese, Bangladeshi, and Pakistani cuisines. It is made from thickening milk in a hot open pan around 180 degrees Fahrenheit. It has a lower moisture content than most cheeses. It is popular for making Indian sweets such as barfi, gulab jamun, and peda. There are even different varieties of khoa within India that differ based on the moisture content from 20% to 50%.¹⁵ Whether it is officially a cheese is somewhat debatable. It can have a consistency anywhere from condensed milk to ricotta cheese. One aunty from my childhood made a delicious peda where she substituted ricotta cheese for traditional khoa.

I need to note another very popular cheese available in India. If you actually ask most Indians about cheese, specifically using the word cheese instead of paneer, they will tell you about Amul cheese. Amul is an Indian dairy company that makes many products, including ghee, yogurt, chocolates, paneer, and a variety of processed cheeses.²¹ Many Indians think of Amul processed cheese as representative of the English word cheese. In contrast, paneer represents natural cheese from traditional Indian cuisine.

Amul cheese comes in a few varieties, but the most well known is the tin can. The label on the tin calls the product a “pasteurized processed cheddar cheese product”. It is hard straight from the tin with a taste similar to cheddar, but saltier and a little sour. It can last on pantry shelves for who knows how long, probably forever. While it’s only partly cheese and mostly salt, preservatives, coloring agents, and emulsifiers, it is a favorite in India.²² It is popular for grilled cheese sandwiches, as a dip for chips, and any other way you can use cheese. Amul cheese is also available as slices and as a spread.

Why is paneer considered the only cheese in Indian cuisine?

This brings us back to our original question: why is paneer the only cheese used in Indian cuisine? Well, it isn’t as we just discussed. But why did paneer come to represent Indian cheese so heavily?

Based on my research I found two main reasons.

First, it’s difficult to make some of these cheeses away from their mountainous regions of origin such as Jammu’s mozzarella like kalari and the Himalayan chhurpi. Also, given that they are from cuisines of communities not well represented in North America, there isn’t much of a market to export those cheeses.

The next reason is that paneer is a generic Hindu-Urdu word for all types of cheese.¹ While other types of cheeses exist across India, they will still be called paneer by many Indians which can be confusing for English speakers. Add on that other Indian cheeses are also fresh white cheeses and that early Europeans didn’t care to understand the nuances of Indian cuisine. It’s like someone calling both korma and vindaloo curries. They are very different for South Asians, but some people just don’t care to understand the differences. This is one reason why rasmalai is often said to be made with paneer, but it is more accurately made from chhena.⁵Likewise, many English language gulab jamun recipes call for using milk powder so many non-Indians don’t know gulab jamun is traditionally made from khoa.

There is no doubt that paneer is the most common type of cheese used in Indian cuisine¹, but it is not the only one. It is just the representative Indian cheese in western Indian cuisine.

Thank you for listening! You can find a transcript and the sources used to make this episode on cooklikeanaunty.com/cheese. You can also find recipes for popular Indian dishes on the website or the Cook Like An Aunty YouTube channel. Links in the show notes.

Thanks for listening! And see you next time.

Sources