The Cheese That Makes Homemade Mozzarella Sticks So Much Easier

The Takeout had the pleasure of catching up with Jeff Mauro at the 2025 Food Network New York City Wine & Food Festival. Even though we were saddened by the news that we won't be seeing him on "The Kitchen" anymore now that this show has been canceled, we look forward to seeing his new one-man stage show "From Clown to King." (Could it be he's referencing two burger mascots?) He's long been one of our favorite celeb chefs, not least because he's provided us with a bunch of different ideas for using up leftover turkey as well as a sure-fire way to heat up mashed potatoes that involves using a lot of butter. This time around, he gave us a tip for making mozzarella sticks: Start with string cheese.

Yes, string cheese is usually made of mozzarella, but it comes pre-cut. As Mauro says, "It's tailor-made for [mozzarella sticks]." Why should you go through the hassle of cutting up a block of cheese when perfectly-shaped cheese fingers can be bought by the bag for about the same price? Sure, string cheese may seem a bit sussy due to its alleged involvement in some sort of "incident," but the only ones referencing it are a '90s jam band called String Cheese Incident that are still going strong after three decades. When you add in Mauro's endorsement, we'd say string cheese is a pretty solid dairy product.

You can't just drop naked cheese into hot fat or it would melt, which is why most mozzarella sticks are breaded. Jeff Mauro, however, prefers to use batter. Not just any batter, either, but one made with beer. In his opinion, "a nice resilient beer batter that you would [use] for fish and chips ... ensures a nice seal and it's so much better than breading." There's no need to break out the craft brews, though, since his suggestion is: "Something like a Coors Light. Something that's bubbly but also not too bitter." He also advises using a combination of all-purpose and rice flour in the batter, and his beer-battered Italian mozza balls call for three parts of the former to one of the latter.

Once those strong cheese sticks are batter-dipped and deep-fried, you're also going to need some kind of dipping sauce. Mauro likes a side of marinara (or "MauroNara", as he calls his recipe), but others accompany them with ranch dressing. There are even a number of upstate New York eateries that serve this appetizer with melba sauce. While the pairing does sound unusual, any fan of Monte Cristo sandwiches might find themselves agreeing that sweetened raspberry puree could be the best dip for mozzarella sticks.