Cheese On The Menu:
In the Kitchen with Process Cheese
Pasteurized process cheese offers many benefits to restaurant chefs in the kitchen cooking with cheese. First, it allows chefs to control the melting characteristics of cheese. Second, process cheese ensures consistent flavor over time regardless of season or age. Third, chefs and food manufacturers can customize process cheese to meet specific flavor, shape and performance requirements.
Culinary Applications
Cheese Sauces
Pasteurized process cheese melts exceptionally well and creates a smooth, velvety, creamy cheese sauce that is perfect for cheesy dishes like macaroni and cheese and ballpark-style nacho cheese dip. For natural cheese sauce, the addition of one ounce of process cheese to one quart of cheese sauce will help emulsify the cheese sauce.
Sandwich & Burger Slices
Like the classic favorite American cheese, slices of process cheese add great flavor and enable chefs to control the melting characteristics of the cheese to suit a variety of applications from a toasty oven-heated sub, to a flame broiled burger, process cheese will deliver a perfectly melted and bubbling cheese topping every time.
Frozen & Fried Food
Process cheese melts uniformly and can be customized to tolerate high heat so it is the perfect ingredient for refrigerated meat products like sausages, and frozen foods like burritos, and any cheesy appetizer like fried cheese sticks.
Flavor
Chefs can create new menu items at minimal cost by getting creative with flavorful cheeses. Unique cheese flavors include Smoked, Chipotle, Bacon and Ranch American, among traditional flavors like American, Sharp and Extra-Sharp Cheddar, Monterey Jack, Colby, Pepper Jack and Swiss.
What Is Pasteurized Process Cheese?
It is a blend of natural cheese that has been pasteurized to the point where further ripening stops, resulting in a longer shelf life. The cheeses are combined with emulsifiers to bond the cheese ingredients (milk fat, proteins and water) so that it will melt uniformly without separation. The hot blended/pasteurized cheese is poured into forms to create loafs, or poured over chilled belts and cut into ribbons to create sliced cheese. Process cheese is similar in appearance and taste to the cheese it was made from, and it features a smooth elastic texture.
Expansive Product Selection
Pacific Cheese manufactures an extensive array of high-quality, award-winning pasteurized process cheese. Loaves, slices, shreds, diced cheese and sauces are available with a full range of melting functionality, flavor and custom formulations to meet chef’s individual performance requirements.
Our expansive foodservice offering with custom formulations and pack sizes includes:
• BLOCKS – 42, 40, 20 pound blocks
• LOAF – 5 pound loaf
• TUBES – 44mm (1.75 inch) to 105 mm (4 inch) 24” to 48” long
• SAUCES – 35-40 pound bag-in-a-box, boil-in-bag pouches
• SLICES – Pack Sizes – 4/5 lb., 6/5 lb., 8/5 lb., 8/3 lb., 8/2.5 lb.
- Horizontal – 3 3/8” x 10.5” loaf, slice count: 96, 108, 120, 132 and 144
- Pullman (3 x 12 loaf ), (3 x 9 loaf 3-pounder)
• 3” wide ribbon
• Slice Count: 108 (3#), 160, 184, 200 (50 ribbon), 200 (40 ribbon), hoagie 160, 200
- Ribbon
• 3” or 3 3/8” wide, 10.5” or 12” long
- Not individual slices, just long ribbons. Most common is 32 ribbon.
• SHREDS – 4/5 pound, 2/20 pound
• DICED – 4/51/8”, 1/4”, 3/8” dice, 4/5, 2/15, 2/20 pound