Nearly everyone knows how nice the creamy, sweet curds of cottage cheese taste with a bowl of fruit or all by themselves. In spite of the name, many people associate cottage cheese with dairy products but don’t really think of it as a type of cheese. That means that many cooks don’t explore all of the ways they can incorporate cottage cheese with other foods, such as in a cheese sauce. Cottage cheese sauce makes the perfect topping for vegetables, can substitute for a fattening sour cream sauce, and can even combine with other ingredients to create a sweet and cheesy dessert topping.
Everyone loves creamed vegetables, but few people want all the fat and calories that come along for the ride. One way to streamline a vegetable cheese sauce is by replacing the sour cream and high-fat cheese with yogurt and cottage cheese. Popping a chopped onion and several shelled, hard-boiled eggs or some egg substitute into the blender along with a squirt of lemon and perhaps a little minced garlic produces a cottage cheese sauce that perks up veggies and makes dinner seem like a luxury. This sauce has multiple personalities; the wise cook might add curry one time, cilantro another, and Italian herbs still another time to change up the taste.
Grateful, indeed, are the dinner guests who are served pasta Alfredo that has been lightened up with cottage cheese and skim milk rather than heavy cream and cheeses. The trick to a satisfying cottage cheese Alfredo sauce is to include plenty of minced garlic that has been lightly browned in oil as well as some fresh herbs to brighten the flavor. A little dry mustard adds a bit of additional interest, and this sauce can also be used on fish fillets or steaks as well as to sauce chicken breasts.
Another cottage cheese sauce with a unique personality features walnuts, basil, and spinach in addition to cottage cheese and a little grated Romano or Parmesan. Minced garlic and onion go well if the cook intends to use this sauce for pasta, and pine nuts can stand in for the walnuts for those who don’t mind the extra expense. A little yogurt can thin the sauce if necessary.
Cooks can create a yummy, sweet cottage cheese sauce in seconds flat by combining cottage cheese with canned cranberry sauce. A little sugar or honey adds sweetness along with a squirt of lime. Some cooks like to add a block of low-fat or fat-free cream cheese as well. This one does a nice job of bringing out the personality of a mixed fruit salad. It is also a nice addition to angel food or pound cake.