Cheeses You Should Avoid Putting On Your Next Pizza

Store-bought, pre-grated parmesan cheese is arguably easy to use for a quick topping on literally everything. However, it is definitely not the best choice when topping a pizza. According to Foods Guy, at its most basic, pre-grated parmesan will not melt because it has undergone too much processing and is too finely ground. Even freshly-grated parmesan can be fickle in terms of melting due to the temperature at which it melts. However, when freshly grating high-quality parmesan cheese, one can accomplish a velvety, umami-filled mouthful of cheesy magic. 

Foodiosity goes into further detail as to the factors that may prohibit pre-grated parmesan cheese from melting. Yet again, this has to do with science. Most pre-grated and pre-shredded parmesan cheese products are made with poor quality or even fake cheese that has been produced using acid to curdle the milk as opposed to rennet. Cheeses made with acid don't tend to melt well. 

Additionally, these pre-grated and pre-shredded samples are mixed with an anti-caking agent like cornstarch, flour, or cellulose, which keeps the cheese from absorbing moisture and clumping together. Depending upon how much of this anti-caking agent has been added, the cheese may become gummy when heated and never melt. If you do opt for the real deal, select a parmesan with the PDO or Protected Designation of Origin label to ensure the highest possible quality. It's a bit pricier but well worth the cost. 

If you've ever enjoyed a flaming heap of Saganaki at a Greek restaurant, you've eaten what is known as a grilling cheese. Lithuanian white cheese, queso fresco, juustoleipä or bread cheese, halloumi, and Indian paneer are just a few examples of this type of cheese, per Culture. The key factor for why these cheeses don't melt at high temperatures has to do with the protein in them. Grilling cheeses tend to have tightly-wound protein fibers that don't easily let go — meaning they retain a firm, chewy texture when heated.

For the most part, these types of cheeses are made using an acid technique rather than a rennet technique. When the milk is heated to a high temperature, vinegar, lemon juice, or another type of acid is added causing the curds to separate from the whey. The high heat enables the milk proteins — known as casein — to adhere to one another yielding a dense cheese. The one exception to this is Halloumi, which — although made using rennet — isn't allowed to process for as long a period of time as typical rennet-produced cheeses. This creates a cheese that is higher in acidity, thereby encouraging the proliferation of those dense protein nexuses. So unless you want a pizza with a squeaky layer of cheese between the crust and the toppings, you should probably avoid putting this type of grilling cheese on your pizza.

According to Insider's ranking of melting cheeses, sheep's milk cheeses make the worst melting cheese. They cite two factors that limit its capacity to become unctuous: its high protein content and its higher-than-average fat content. These cheeses typically hold their shape and ooze out fat — not altogether terrible, but certainly not ideal as a pizza topping.

Foodiosity goes into more detail with a cheese that is typically made with sheep's milk — feta. In addition to the high protein and fat content typical of sheep's milk cheeses, feta is also high in acidity and moisture. In fact, more than half of feta is water by weight, and about 19 percent of it is a specific type of acid — Pantothenic acid — which is known to have a disproportionately high melting point. Between all of these factors, as feta heats up, it basically steams, leaving a soft, creamy, slightly browned clump of cheese that —while delicious — isn't precisely what most pizzas call for. That being said, we have noted several pizza recipes that disregard this fact, favoring the unique salty flavor it imparts on the dish over its suitability as a perfect melting cheese.

According to The PHCheese, there is a basic rule of thumb that can be applied when you are staring at a cheese counter attempting to decipher which cheese to try on your next homemade pizza. For the most part, fresh cheeses that haven't been aged are much higher in moisture and tend to have more pliable sporadically-distributed protein molecules — known as casein — which make them ideal for melting. Harder aged cheeses will typically be dryer and — thanks to the aging process — the casein molecules will become densely packed, rendering them less likely to yield to the melting process.

This isn't necessarily always the case, as there are exceptions to this rule — think of a beautiful aged Parmesan cheese or a salty Pecorino Romano. Per Culture, the key is the size of the cheese granules added to the dish. A big chunk of parmesan, for example, will simply remain a big glob of fat when heated. But a finely-grated parmesan will yield to the heat, creating a delicate, velvety, melty texture. It's all about science and understanding the properties of cheese that help or hinder its capacity to melt.

Strong-smelling cheese is something that polarizes people into two camps: those who love them versus those who are revolted by them. But what makes these cheeses smell so aggressive? Culture enlightens us by dividing them into two categories: washed-rind cheeses and mold-injected cheeses. 

Washed-rind cheeses are brushed with a brine typically made of leftover alcohol throughout the fermentation process. They are often the most foul-scented of cheeses due to bacterial proliferation, but their flavor tends to be quite mild. Mold-imparted cheeses — like blue cheese — are injected with varying strains of bacteria related to penicillin to encourage the mold to permeate throughout the entire block of cheese. These cheeses tend to be both strong-smelling and strong-tasting.

Smithsonian Magazine suggests that something about the direct link between the olfactory sense and our sense of taste triggers a disgust response similar to what we would experience when exposed to something that has gone rancid. While this may be a product of evolutionary adaptation that has long kept humans from eating potentially deadly foods, it does make one wonder why some people don't respond the same way. Is it nature or nurture? There may be a case for both. Certain cultures are more likely to grow up consuming stinky cheeses from a younger age, therefore exposing their citizens to the smelly cheeses and acculturating them to them. The jury is still out, but for the purposes of putting strong-odored cheese on pizza — we suggest you skip it. 

Scientific research conducted by the University of Auckland in New Zealand definitively answered the question of which cheese is the best on pizza. Their study sought to determine which cheese had the optimal Maillard reaction, yielding a perfectly browned layer of cheese atop a pizza. You can witness this process in action by gauging the bubbles created by the cheeses as they melt. The bubbles cannot be too large, too small, or too flat. In this endeavor, cameras were used to document the entire pizza-making process sampling a wide cross-section of different cheeses.

The end result was that cheddar lacked the necessary elasticity to properly melt — and its bubbles were too small to brown — making it an undesirable choice to top a pizza. Mozzarella was once and for all crowned the king of pizza cheeses thanks to its ideal ratio of moisture to oil. This gives it the perfect elasticity — which melts evenly — and yields the appropriate-sized bubbles to brown without burning. Frankly, we are sad that we were not a part of the research team who presumably had to sacrifice themselves to taste every sample in the name of science.