High Protein Cottage Cheese Salad

Cottage cheese mixed veg Salad is nutritious, high in protein, high in fiber, tasty, and easy to make. Cottage cheese is a very good source of protein and quite decent source of Vitamins and Calcium. To make this salad, you can use either store bought cottage cheese or you can use home made cottage cheese. You can use low fat or whole milk to make the cottage cheese at home. This salad makes for the healthy, delicious, vegetarian, and high protein meal.

Growing up in India, I thought cottage cheese is English word for an Indian cheese called Paneer. But when I moved to the U.S.A. like 15 years back, I understood the difference between the U.S. store bought cottage cheese and the Indian cottage cheese that we make at home or we get from Indian stores. The method of making both kinds of cottage cheese is almost same. The only difference between the two is that the cottage cheese that we get in U.S.A. stores is more liquid in texture and comes with small curds or big curds whereas the one that we call Paneer and we get in Indian stores is more solid in texture.

How to make Cottage cheese at home (the U.S.A. kind)

• Bring the milk to boil.
• Let it cool a bit say for 5 minutes.
• Add lemon juice of about two lemons / limes per half gallon of milk.
• Let the milk curdle completely.
• Once the milk turns acidic, the milk protein coagulates and forms clumps called curds. These curds will get separated from the watery portion of the milk.
• Take big deep vessel.
• Cover it with white cheese cloth or clean white cotton cloth.
• Transfer the curdled milk to the cloth and strain the milk curds and separate them from the watery part of the curdled milk.
• All milk curds will be separated and be there on the cheese cloth or white cotton cloth.  Rest of the watery portion will be collected in the deep vessel underneath the cloth.
• These curds are little liquid in the texture and similar to the cottage cheese we get in the U.S. store.

How to make Cottage cheese at home (the Indian Kind also Known as Paneer)

• Bring the milk to boil.
• Let it cool a bit say for 5 minutes.
• Add lemon juice of about two lemons / limes per half gallon of milk.
• Let the milk curdle completely.
• Once the milk turns acidic, the milk protein coagulates and forms clumps called curds. These curds will get separated from the watery portion of the milk.
• Take big deep vessel.
• Cover it with white cheese cloth or clean white cotton cloth.
• Transfer the curdled milk to the cloth and strain the milk curds and separate them from the watery part of the curdled milk.
• All milk curds will be separated and be there on the cheese cloth or white cotton cloth.  Rest of the watery portion will be collected in the deep vessel underneath the cloth.
• With a spoon bring all the milk curds to the center of the cloth.
• Bring all the ends of the cloth in the middle and tie it really tight.
• Now hang this cheese / paneer in the cloth for about 2 – 3 hours.
• If your cheese has not solidified enough put a heavy weight on the tied cloth for another few hours.
• Put this setting in the refrigerator over night.
• Solid cottage cheese / Paneer is ready.

To make this salad, if you are using store bought cottage cheese from the U.S. stores, you can use the ones with small curds or big curds. If you are using paneer (Indian cottage cheese), shred it or crumble it or make small cube of cottage cheese (paneer). With either kind of cottage cheese, this salad tastes very delicious.

This Recipe makes – 1 big bowl of salad

Preparation and cooking Time – 5 minutes

Ingredients

• 5 – 6 tablespoons of Cottage cheese (Any kind you like small curd or big curd cottage cheese) or about 1 and 1/2 cups of shredded or small cubed Paneer (Indian cottage cheese).
• ¼th cup of Shredded or minutely cut red onions
• ¼th cup of shredded or minutely cut cabbage
• ¼th cup of minutely cut greens (baby spinach, kale, collard greens, or any salad greens you have at home)
• ¼th cup of shredded carrots
• 1/4th cup of chopped cucumber
• 1 tablespoon of each minutely chopped green bell pepper, red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, and / or orange bell pepper (all or any of these that you have at home).
• 2 tablespoons of shredded cheese (of your choice, I have used mixed cheddar and mozzarella shredded cheese) – This is Optional!
• 1 teaspoon red paprika powder or red chili powder (optional)
• Salt and Pepper to your taste.
• 1 teaspoon of grated ginger (optional).
• Chopped Cilantro for garnishing.

How to make Cottage Cheese Salad

• Take a deep bowl.

• Add cottage cheese to the bowl.

• Add chopped / minced vegetables (mentioned in the list of ingredients), add ginger paste or shredded ginger, red paprika or red chili powder, salt and Pepper to the bowl and mix everything really well with a spoon.
• Add shredded cheese – this step is optional.
• Garnish with chopped cilantro.

• Salad is ready to eat.

Tips

• To make it spicier, you can add green chili paste or shredded jalapenos.
• If you do not have all the vegetables mentioned in the list of ingredients, you can add whatever salad vegetables you have at home.
• If you want to make this salad tangier add chaat masala (available in Indian store).

To know how to make cottage cheese and mixed vegetable panini click the link below-

Cottage cheese and mixed veg Panini recipe

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