Turn Sour Cream Into Cream Cheese With These 2 Additions

If you're ambitious enough to make cheese from scratch, you might initially be daunted by some of the more complicated recipes calling for such esoteric ingredients as rennet and calcium chloride. Some cheeses are more beginner-friendly. You can make cottage cheese from just three ingredients (milk, vinegar, and salt) while homemade mozzarella just needs two ingredients (milk and vinegar). Even though milk, acid, and salt can be cooked to make cream cheese, you can make a reasonable facsimile using an easy no-heat method by substituting sour cream for the milk.

The recipe really couldn't be much easier: Take some sour cream, stir in a few drops of citrus juice or vinegar, then sprinkle in a pinch of salt for flavor. In fact, you really don't need the acid or salt for the proper consistency, but both will add to the flavor. Once you strain the sour cream for 24 hours, you'll have achieved cream cheese. Spread it on a bagel, bake a cheesecake, or try it in any of our favorite cream cheese recipes.

Some DIY cream cheese recipes call for using Greek yogurt instead of sour cream as a somewhat healthier alternative. The yogurt doesn't actually need to be Greek, though, since any plain yogurt will do. Years ago, before Greek yogurt became trendy, I had a cookbook that was all about using strained yogurt as a cream cheese substitute, and yes, I tried it, and it worked just fine. (I didn't even use cheesecloth, since I can never be bothered with that stuff.) After all, the only thing that differentiates Greek yogurt from the standard kind is that it contains a higher proportion of curds to whey, and once you strain yogurt to make your cream cheese, all that liquid whey will go "a-whey."

It's also possible to turn ricotta into cream cheese by mixing it in equal parts with plain yogurt, although you'll again need to strain it to get the proper consistency. An even easier no-strain cream cheese swap is to use mascarpone, although since this cheese has a milder, creamier flavor, you might want to add an acidic element in order to better mimic the flavor. Of course, there's also neufchâtel, which you may also know as low-fat cream cheese, since that's essentially what it is. I buy a few bricks of both neufchâtel and cream cheese at the same time, and I'm always telling myself I'll try to spot the difference. I never remember to do so, though, which speaks to their interchangeability. With these easy tricks, you'll be able to enjoy that signature cream cheese tang — any time you like — using whatever you have in your fridge.