Blue Cheeses

A blue cheese is a cheese that has veins or blotches of blue in it, caused by the presence and growth in it of the Penicillium mould. As a result of the mould, it will have a distinctive coloration, aroma and taste.

How strong are blue cheeses?

There are many varieties of blue cheeses — some are very mild, some are tangy, some kick like a mule.

When you see a blue cheese described as “aggressive”, that’s cheese-tasters’ code for “it’s going to clear your sinuses.”

Sometimes, food writers will suggest to people that if they don’t like blue cheese, they should try a particular one because it is very mild, but in my experience, if people have decided they don’t like blue cheese, you are wasting your time. Their mind is made up, even though it may be just a visual thing, seeing all the blue mould in the cheese.

Cooking Tips

What is surprising to most people is that blue cheeses are make very good cheeses to cook with. They add a complex, gutsy zest to dishes.

Crumble some blue cheese on top of a bowl of cream of celery soup.

Equivalents

1 cup blue cheese, crumbled = 1/4 pound = 115g

Storage Hints

Wrap tightly in tin foil and refrigerate.

Types of blue cheeses

Beenleigh Blue Cheese

Beenleigh Blue Cheese is made in Totnes, Devon, England, from sheep's milk from January to July. Crumbly in texture, it is pale yellow with greenish-blue veins, and has a taste that is salty, sweet and tangy. The sheep's milk is curdled with vegetarian...

Blackstick's Velvet Cheese

Blackstick's Velvet Cheese is a creamy, smooth textured sheep's-milk blue cheese with a nutty, mild, slightly sweet taste. It has a light grey powder in patches on the surface. It is made by Butlers Farmhouse Cheeses in Longridge, Lancashire, England. The...

Bleu Bénédictin Cheese

Bleu Bénédictin Cheese has a mild taste compared to a blue cheese such as Stilton. Made from pasteurized whole cow's milk treated with Roquefort penicillium mould, it is a semi-soft blue with a rind of blue mould dusted with whitish-grey. It is cream-coloured i...

Bleu d'Auvergne

Bleu d'Auvergne Cheese © Denzil Green Bleu d'Auvergne is a blue cheese made in the Auvergne region in central France. It is a cream-coloured cheese with streaks of blue in it. It is spicy but not sharp tasting, and milder than Roquefort blue ...

Bleu de Basque

Bleu de Basque is a modern French blue cheese made from sheep's milk. The milk is "thermalized" but not pasteurized, then coagulated with calf rennet. Two sizes of wheels are made, 11 pounds and 4 pounds (5 kg and 1.8 kg.) The 11 pound sizes are...

Bleu de Bresse

Bleu de Bresse (aka Bresse Bleu) is a milk blue cheese. It is made in cylinders weighing from 125 to 500 grams. Outside, it has a smooth, off-white rind similar to the rind on Brie and Camembert cheese. Inside, it is creamy and soft like Brie, almost...

Bleu de Gex

Bleu de Gex is a blue cheese made from the unpasteurized milk of Montbeliardes cows. The milk is heated to 80 F (27 C), Rennet is added, then the curds are cut to the size of small peas, and moulded. It is dry-salted over a period of 4 to 6 days. It...

Bleu de Termignon

Bleu de Termignon is a blue cheese currently (2004) made by one woman with 9 cows in the French Alps. Her cows graze in the National Park of Vanoise. The cheese is not inoculated with a blue cheese mould, as other blue cheeses are. Rather, her cows...

Bleu des Causses

Bleu des Causses is a mild blue cheese made from cow's milk in the centre of southern France.

Blue Wensleydale

Blue Wensleydale Cheese was revived in the 1990s from the Wensleydale recipe. It is made from double-cream. It has blue veins like Stilton, though it is much milder. It is aged about 6 months. This is often sold as "Yorkshire Blue." Equivalents...

Buffalo Blue Cheese

Buffalo Blue Cheese is an English blue cheese made in Thirsk, North Yorkshire. It is soft, spreadable and creamy with a mild taste. The white part of Buffalo Blue Cheese is very white because the milk used is water buffalo milk. from water buffalo...

Buxton Blue Cheese

Buxton Blue is a russet-coloured blue cheese, with light blue veins made in Buxton, Derbyshire, England. It is cylinder shaped, with a tangy taste. The cheeses are made from cow's milk that comes mostly from the areas of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire...

Byland Blue Cheese

Byland Blue Cheese is firm, but creamy and crumbly blue cheese with greenish-blue veins. It has a somewhat sharp, spicy taste. It is made in wheels 3 1/3 pounds (1.5 kg) big, and sold in pieces wrapped in foil. Byland is made by Shepherds Purse...

Cabrales Blue Cheese

Cabrales Blue Cheese is made in four villages, including one called Cabrales, in the Eastern Asturias region of North West Spain, at the northern point of Picos de Europa in a township called Peñamellera Alta. It is a mix of raw milk from cows, goats ...

Cambozola Cheese

Cambozola Cheese © Denzil Green Cambozola Cheese is a modern, cow's milk cheese made commercially. It is meant to be a cross between Gorgonzola blue cheese and Camembert. It is a triple-cream, full-fat cheese that like Camembert is soft and ...

Canterbury Blue Cheese

Canterbury is a soft, creamy blue cheese with clumps of blue mould in it. It is made in a 5 1/2 pound (2.5 kg) wheel, and washed with brine while maturing, then wrapped in foil for sale, Canterbury Blue Cheese has a grey, gritty rind that is edible. Storage...

Caradon Blue Cheese

Caradon is a creamy, mild Cornish blue cheese. It is made from the pasteurized milk of pedigree Friesian cows in Cornwall, approximately 150 cows in herb (as of 2006.) The milk is curdled with calf's rennet. It is made for Paxton & Whitfield...

Cashel Blue Cheese

Cashel Blue Cheese is a farmhouse Irish cheese made near Cashel in County Tipperary, Ireland. It's made on the farm of Jane and Louis Grubb, with milk from their herd of Holstein-Friesian cows. They started making it in 1984; production has doubled every...

Colston Bassett Stilton Cheese

Colston Bassett is a small Stilton producing dairy. It has been making its Stilton cheese since 1920, using milk from nearby farms. Their Stilton is made from pasteurized milk. The cheese has a dry, crusty rind, with a white mould on it. It is...

Cornish Blue Cheese

Cornish Blue Cheese is a farmhouse blue cheese made from pasteurized milk from a herd of 140 Friesian cows. It has a mild, sweet taste like European blue cheeses as opposed to Stilton, and is meant to be eaten as a relatively young blue cheese. Vegetarian...

Crème de Saint Agur Cheese

Crème de Saint Agur Cheese is a spreadable version of Saint Agur that comes in a tub. Introduced in 2001.

Danish Blue Cheese

Danish Blue Cheese is made from cow's milk. It is aged a minimum of 60 days, then stored up to 10 months at 35 to 38 F (1 to 3 C.) It comes in creamy-white coloured wheels with blue green veins and unevenly spaced holes. The cheese is creamy and spreadable....

Devon Blue Cheese

Devon Blue is made with raw milk from Ayrshire cows. The milk is heated, then Penicillium roqueforti and vegetarian Rennet are added. The curds, with the whey not drained off them, are put into cylindrical moulds. The moulds are turned several times...

Dolcelatte

Dolcelatte is the brand name of Gorgonzola-type blue cheeses in Italy. There are several different cheeses sold under this brand name. One is a mild Gorgonzola called "Galbani Gorgonzola D.O.P Dolcelatte." This cheese is an official Gorgonzola. It...

Dorset Blue Vinney

Dorset Blue Vinney is a blue cheese made in Dorset, England. Most Blue Vinney is made from raw skim cow's milk, though some versions are also made from pasteurized skim milk. Starter is added to the milk, then vegetarian Rennet and Penicillium roqueforti,...

Dunsyre Blue Cheese

Dunsyre is a Scottish farmhouse blue cheese. It is a creamy cheese, with a moist, white rind with bluish-green spicy veins running through it. It has a mild, almost sweet taste. Dunsyre Blue Cheese is made in South Lanarkshire, Scotland by Humphrey...

Ermite Cheese

Ermite blue cheese is made at a Benedictine monastery called Abbaye Saint-Benoît-du-Lac in Saint-Benoît-du-Lac on Lac Memphremagog, Québec It is a mild blue cheese, with tangy aftertones and an aroma of mushrooms. In texture, it is crumbly with a ...

Exmoor Blue Cheese

Exmoor is a creamy yellow farmhouse blue cheese made in different size rounds. It is made from unpasteurized Jersey cow's milk. The milk is heated to 70 F (21 C), at which point the starter culture is added. The milk is then raised to a temperature...

Fourme d'Ambert Cheese

Fourme d'Ambert Cheese is a blue cheese made in the French départements of Loire and Puy-de-Dôme, and in the Cantal region of eastern Auvergne, around Saint-Flour. It is creamy, with a milder and less salty taste than many other blue cheeses. Some p...

Fourme de Montbrison Cheese

Fourme de Montbrison is a firm cheese with a slightly rough, orangish-reddish rind made in a tall, cylindrical shape. Inside, it is supple and pale yellow. It has a mild taste with less hint of salt than many other cheeses. Some people think they taste...

Gorgonzola Cheese

Gorgonzola Cheese is a cylindrical blue cheese made from full-fat, pasteurized cow's milk. The cheese is made in various sizes. The minimum height is 13 cm; the diameter will be between 20 and 32 cm. It has an inedible, rough pinkish-grey rind....

Guler Cheese

Guler Cheese may never really have existed to any great extent, but this whole story is too good to pass up because it involves a messy divorce. A man named Homer Spencer attempted to create, starting in 1940, an American Roquefort in caves at Trout...

Harbourne Blue Cheese

Harbourne Blue Cheese is made in Devon, England, from pasteurized goat's milk. It has a mild taste with a bit of a tang in it. It is almost white with greyish-green veins, and is firm and crumbly. The rind is moist. The goat's milk used comes come...

Jindi Deluxe Blue Cheese

Jindi Deluxe Blue is an Australian blue cheese made in Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. It is white and crumbly, with veins of blue mould. The company -- Jindi -- also makes a Reserve Blue, a Sapphire Blue, a Heritage Blue, and a Jumbunna Blue. History...

Lanark Blue Cheese

Lanark Blue is a Scottish Blue cheese made from unpasteurized sheep's milk. Unusually for a sheep's milk cheese, it's made year round. It is made in Carnwath Farm near Strathclyde, Lanarkshire, Scotland by H J Errington and Co, The owner, Humphrey Errington,...

Lancashire Blue Cheese

Lancashire Blue is a mild, creamy blue cheese. It is made by several producers. The version made by Adrian and Annette Rhodes Inglewhite near Preston, Lancashire is made from pasteurised milk from Holstein cows, curdled with vegetarian rennet and...

Maytag Blue Cheese

Maytag Blue Cheese hails from Newton, Iowa, in central Iowa. The cheese is made from cow's milk, with a vegetarian Rennet and Penicillium roqueforti mould added. It's made in 4 pound (1.8 kg) cylinders that have long holes punched in them with needles...

Mrs Bells Blue Cheese

Mrs Bells is a creamy, smooth cheese with blue veins dotted through it. It is less salty than many other blue cheeses. Made by Judy Bell of Shepherds Purse Cheeses Ltd in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, she named Mrs Bells Blue Cheese after herself. She...

Oxford Blue Cheese

Oxford Blue is a soft, creamy blue cheese that has a mild taste with a bit of sharpness. It is made from pasteurized cow's milk curdled with vegetarian rennet. It is sold in 14 oz (400 g) silver foil-wrapped rounds, in jars, and in smaller cylinders...

Penicillium Glaucum

Penicillium Glaucum is one of two varieties of bacteria that is used to cause blue cheeses to develop blue mould. It is used in Gorgonzola, and is used half and half with Penicillium roqueforti in making Stilton. It is milder-tasting than Penicillium...

Penicillium Roqueforti

Penicillium Roqueforti is one of two varieties of bacteria that is added to blue cheeses to cause it to develop the characteristic blue mould. It is used in Roquefort and Maytag Blue Cheese, and is used half and half with Penicillium glaucum in making...

Point Reyes Blue Cheese

Point Reyes is a farmhouse blue cheese. It is very creamy and not crumbly, with no rind. The cheese body is white, with sparse bluish-grey mould, veining it. The taste has a bit of a tang because the starter cultures, give it a tang like buttermilk,...

Roaring Forties Blue Cheese

Roaring Forties is an Australian Blue Cheese, made on King Island, an island on the Bass Strait to the south of Australia, between the Australian mainland, and Tasmania. The cheese is named after the strong winds that blow along the 40° South Longitude, ...

Roquefort Cheese

Roquefort Cheese © Denzil Green Roquefort Cheese is a blue cheese made from raw sheep's milk curdled with calf rennet . The breed of sheep that the milk is taken from is called "Lacaune." The wheels are 8 inches wide by 3 to 4 inches (7.5 x 10 cm) ...

Saint Agur Cheese

Saint Agur Cheese © Denzil Green Saint Agur is a soft, creamy, spreadable, double-cream blue cheese with a slightly milder flavour than other blue cheeses. Less salty tasting than Roquefort, it is made from pasteurized cow's milk enriched with ...

Shropshire Blue

Shropshire Blue © Denzil Green Shropshire Blue is a blue cheese. Despite it's name, it is actually made in Nottinghamshire, by methods similar to Stilton. Pasteurized cow's milk is curdled with a vegetarian Rennet, and inoculated with Penicillium ...

Somerset Blue Cheese

There are two cheeses called Somerset Blue. One is actually a blue cheese. It is semi-firm, and yellowish from the rich Jersey Cow milk used. The rind has a light dusting of white mould on it. The milk is unpasteurized, and curdled with vegetarian...

Stilton

Stilton © Denzil Green Stilton is a British Blue Cheese that is stronger than Roquefort and Gorgonzola. Cow's milk is pasteurized first at 161 F (72 C ) for 15 seconds. The milk is then cooled down to 86 F to 88 F (30 C to 31 C.) Penicillium ...

Strathdon Blue Cheese

Strathdon Blue is a blue cheese, reminiscent of a milder version of Stilton, with a spicy taste and many blue veins. It is made from pasteurized cow's milk (about 70% Friesian and 30% Ayrshire milk.) One version curdles the milk with calf's rennet;...

Troo Bloo You Cheese

Troo Bloo You is an English blue cheese made from sheep's milk. It is firm but moist. The milk is curdled with vegetarian rennet. The mould culture used is penicillium roqueforti, but the maker uses a mixture of different strains of this mould. At...

Valdeón Cheese

This is a salty, Spanish blue cheese with a sharp, strong, salty flavour. It is made from cow's milk, sometimes mixed with goat's or sheep's milk (cow's milk is available year round; the other two milks may be mixed in during the spring or summer when...