It’s easy to make your own dry curd cottage cheese. This recipe makes a cottage cheese with small curd – perfect for nalysnyky (Ukrainian cheese crepes) or Easter cheese babka. My homemade Instant Pot dry curd cottage cheese is destined for perishke (or pyrizhky, basically a bread-based baked perohe or pyrogy)
When I buy dry curd cottage cheese, it has really large curds. For most recipes, I end up mashing it with a fork (annoying) or squeezing it through a potato ricer or a sieve (time-consuming).
Special equipment
- Instant Pot
- Glass lid
- Colander
- Metal whisk
- Cheesecloth
Making my own dry curd cottage cheese in the Instant Pot is a big win. Fill the Instant Pot with your milk. I used 4 liters – but you can easily half the recipe.
I used 3.5 liters of whole (3%) milk and 2 cups of whipping cream. You can also make this with 4 liters of whole milk.
Line a colander with cheesecloth. Cheesecloth is very thin so make sure there are at least two cheesecloth layers.
Heat the milk using the Yogurt setting on the Instant Pot with a glass lid. It’ll start out with a boil phase. After it comes to a low boil – which takes 50 or 60 minutes with 4 liters of liquid – shut off the Instant Pot.
Add 1 cup of white vinegar to the hot milk mixture. The curds will separate from the whey.
Give the mixture a quick whisk. This makes the curds smaller.
Pour the hot mixture into the colander. If you want to keep the whey, drain it over a container. After most of the whey is drained, I sit the colander back over the Instant Pot.
Set the mixture into the fridge and let it drain for a few hours. Now, you’ve made cottage cheese!
Instant Pot Ukrainian Farm Cheese - Dry Curd Cottage Cheese
Equipment
- Instant Pot
- Instant Pot glass lid
- Colander
- Metal whisk
- Cheesecloth
Ingredients
- 15 cups or 3.5 liters whole milk 3%
- 2 cups or 500mL cream
- 1 cup vinegar
Instructions
- Combine the 15 cups of milk and 2 cups of cream in the Instant Pot and top with a glass lid
- Start heating the milk using the the Yogurt setting. The display should show "Boil"
- When the cycle moves into the Yogurt setting, turn off the Instant Pot
- Add 1 cup of vinegar
- Stir quickly with a metal whisk
- Pour the mixture into a cheesecloth-lined colander
- Drain the whey off the cheese in the refrigerator
Hello! I want to make this in my instant pot duo evo plus, but I don’t think my yogurt setting brings it to a boil….and the highest temperature I can set it to is 194F. How would I do that?
Hi Lydia – I use an Instant Pot Duo so the settings in this recipe may not match your Instant Pot. But that temperature is in the range for making cheese. It sounds like you have a thermometer so stir frequently and measure it.