Freezing Do's and Don'ts
Most cheese experts cringe when you talk about freezing cheese. Think about it. All the care that's gone into keeping up the moisture content and developing just the right curd simply cannot be helped through the process of freezing. In fact, freezing draws the moisture out of the cheese, making it crumbly when brought back to room temperature.
The first rule of freezing cheese, then, is don't. If you do, be prepared for an entirely different object to come out of your freezer. In other words, it may not resemble that piece of cheese you tasted before it was frozen.
On the other hand, people have been successfully freezing cheese for quite some time, and many chefs advocate keeping a bag of grated cheese in your freezer. And those large packages of grated cheese, sold in warehouse- style grocery stores, are certainly meant to be frozen.
If you must freeze your cheese, do it only for cheeses you intend to use for cooking, and grate the cheese first. Then store the cheese in airtight, plastic bags, and freeze it fast. It may take a bit of experimenting to determine which cheeses freeze well and which don't.
Where does the truth lie? It depends on whether you're using processed, grated, or blocks of cheese. Processed cheeses are cheese products combined, rather than separated milk, and can often withstand freezing without noticeable changes in texture or taste. Grated cheeses are usually meant to start out fairly dry and eventually be melted, so again, it's hard to notice a change in taste or texture when used in cooking. Avoid freezing blocks of cheese because they will lose too much moisture when frozen, and then end up crumbly and tasteless.
