Basket cheese vs Queso Panela
Basket cheese
Facts
- Texture
- Fresh
- Type
- Fresh
- Rind
- No rind
- Country
- Levant
- Place
- originated in Turkey
Basket cheese is a fresh cheese of the Levant, and the style originated in Turkey. The Turkish name is sepet peyniri, which means cheese of the basket. Makers drain the curd in a woven basket, and the weave leaves a pattern on the surface. A fresh piece is mild, moist, and often almost without salt. A drier piece is firmer and only lightly salty, but it is still a young cheese.
Queso Panela
Facts
- Milk
- Cow
- Texture
- Fresh
- Type
- Fresh
- Rind
- No rind
- Country
- Mexico
Queso panela is a fresh white cheese from Mexico, made from cow's milk. It is the Mexican cheese of that name, not a goat cheese from California that sometimes uses a similar word. The loaf is soft, moist, and mild, and it has no rind. Basket molds leave a woven pattern on the surface, which is why people also call it queso de canasta. It is eaten fresh, not aged into a sharp wheel.