Here’s how to make blended cottage cheese for your favorite recipes, including blending tips, storage information, and types of cottage cheese.
Swap chunky cottage cheese for fluffy, creamy whipped cottage cheese and use it to make dough, sauces, and dips. You can even blend extra to store in the freezer for later.
Tonia’s Notes
I’ve got to admit that I’ve never been a huge fan of cottage cheese until the idea of adding blended cottage cheese to recipes came along! Now, as my daughters told me, we’ve had more cottage cheese in our fridge recently than we’ve had in their entire lives.
We use it in everything from pizza dough to Alfredo sauce! We love that it adds protein to some of our favorite recipes and is easy to work with.
How To Make Blended Cottage Cheese
Cottage Cheese
Put one cup of cottage cheese in a mini food processor. I typically use 4% small curd cottage cheese when using it to make dough.
Blend Until Smooth
Add the lid and blend the cottage cheese until smooth. Stop at least once to scrape down the sides and then continue blending.
Cottage Cheese Dough
Allow the whipped cottage cheese to rest for 10 minutes before turning it into dough. Combine 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 2 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt in a bowl. Add the blended cottage cheese and stir until a dough forms. Turn out onto a floured surface and form into a ball. Cover and rest the dough for 10-15 minutes before using it in your recipe.
Refrigerate
Put the cottage cheese in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap or put it in an airtight container. Refrigerate for 3-4 days. In the photo below, you can see its texture and thickness after being in the fridge overnight.
Freeze
To freeze blended cottage cheese, place it in an airtight freezer bag or container. Store in the freezer for 1-2 months. Thaw it in the fridge overnight, re-blend if necessary, and use it however you want.
Types of Cottage Cheese
I tested my recipes with lots of different cottage cheese brands (name-brand and store-brand), including 4%, 2%, and 1% varieties. The amount of whey, as well as the size and consistency of the curds, were surprisingly different depending on the brand.
I found that 4% cottage cheese worked consistently well to make dough. If you do want to use low-fat cottage cheese to make dough, you can drain off some of the whey to make it less wet. In the photo above, this is how much whey drained from one cup of low-fat cottage cheese in 15 minutes.
- 4% cottage cheese gives recipes a creamier texture, richer flavor, and is less watery
- 2% and 1% work well in some baked items, like egg bites, or when fewer calories are more important than creaminess or separation.
Way To Blend Cottage Cheese
- Mini Food Processor: Also called mini electric food choppers. This is the method I use the most because it is perfect for making one cup of cottage cheese smooth.
- Food Processor: This works well if you are processing larger amounts of cottage cheese. Mine was too big for one cup of cottage cheese to make it as smooth as the mini version, even after scraping the sides several times.
- High-Speed Blender: If you are making a smaller amount of blended cottage cheese, it doesn’t work very well in a high-speed blender, as you can see in the photo above on the left, where I tried to blend one cup. On the other hand, if you are blending a larger amount, a high-speed blender works really well, making the cottage cheese smooth and airy as shown in the photo above on the right.
How To Use Whipped Cottage Cheese
- Dough: Add flour, baking powder, and salt to make the dough. Then, use the dough to make everything from pizza crust and breadsticks to soft pretzels and bagels.
- Egg Bites: Adding whipped cottage cheese to your egg bites recipe gives them a light, creamy texture and adds extra protein!
- Sauce: Turn blended cottage cheese into creamy Alfredo sauces and cheese sauces by using it in place of some of the cream.
- Dressings and Dips: Add protein to your salad dressing by replacing some of the mayo or sour cream with blended cottage cheese.
- Dips: It also works really well in dip recipes like our cottage cheese ranch dip!
More Cottage Cheese Recipes
Blended Cottage Cheese
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup cottage cheese 4% small curd
Instructions
- Put the cottage cheese into a mini food processor or electric food chopper.
- Cover and blend until smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides occasionally.
- Rest the blended cottage cheese for 10 minutes before using it to make dough.
- Store in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days or in the freezer for 1-2 months. Re-blend before using, if necessary.
