A Primer on Mexican Style Cheeses

When Froylan and Zoila Ochoa moved to Oregon in the early 1990s, they struggled to find the bright flavors of queso fresco and stringy braids of queso Oaxaca they enjoyed in their hometown of Michoacán. Like so many other immigrants before them, they realized the only way to access the foods of home was to make those cheeses themselves—which they did, in 10-gallon batches in their home kitchen.

Zoila knew how to make cheese, and the rest of the family learned from her and turned the product into a family business. They started by selling to friends and neighbors, then selling door-to-door around the state, and Froylan dreamed of building it into something bigger. After Don Froylan passed away in 2000, his family not only continued to make cheese, but turned the informal enterprise into a full-fledged commercial cheese company, naming it after the late patriarch.

More than two decades later, the Ochoa’s son, Francisco, and his wife Lisa still make the same cheese at their Salem, Oregon creamery, taking advantage of local milk from Oregon dairy farmers, saving recent immigrants from the same struggle to find flavors of home in a new place, and introducing the vast culture (pun intended) of Mexican cheesemaking to turophiles around the Pacific Northwest.

Read on to understand the flavors and styles that drove the Ochoas to start making cheese in their home kitchen—and for ideas on how to incorporate them into your own home kitchen.

Common Mexican style cheeses

Queso Fresco

The most common and most popular cheese in Mexico relies on its extreme freshness (hence the name) for its signature bright flavors. Salty and tasting of pure milk, the moist cheese, usually formed into short cylinders, breaks off into craggy chunks that make it a delight to eat straight out of hand.

Queso fresco doesn’t melt, and its refreshing coolness is part of its allure, so it works on cold or room temperature dishes—like the finishing touch on a taco. The crumbly Cotija, below, works better for that final role on any hot dish. The salt and faint tang wind provide a counter to sweet dishes, so you will often see a thin slice atop a bit of quince or guava paste, and it marries beautifully into a fruit salad—especially when tossed with lime juice and a bit of hot chili powder. In 2022, Don Froylan’s Queso Fresco placed third at the American Cheese Society’s Annual Cheese Competition in the Fresh Hispanic Cheese category.

Queso Cotija

Many people know that Champagne made outside of the Champagne region in France isn’t really supposed to be called Champagne, but forgo the pedant’s battle in daily conversation. Similarly, true Cotija cheese must be aged in the town of Cotija for at least three months—it was the first Mexican cheese to get this type of designation. The aged, raw-milk version in made in Michoacán, the state both the Ochoas and Cotija come from, is fragrant, nutty, and hard, almost like Pecorino Romano.

The 60-day aged version Don Froylan makes in Oregon mimics the sharp, complex layers of flavor in the original. The crumbly texture can quickly liven up a salad or add a finishing note on top of a casserole. While the assertive traditional version is used almost exclusively raw and sparingly, the slightly milder style made here means it can fit many more places: substitute it for Parmesan over a spicy pasta or sneak it into a quesadilla along with queso Oaxaca for a little bit of extra pizzazz.

Queso Oaxaca

Queso Oaxaca, known as quesillo in its home state of Oaxaca, is a stretched-curd cheese, like mozzarella, and it pulls beautifully into delicate threads, like string cheese. In 2022, Don Froylan’s Queso Oaxaca won the Hispanic Cooking Cheese category at the American Cheese Society’s Annual Cheese Competition. They hand-stretch the cheese into long, thick pieces that then get wound up into individual balls—half the fun of opening the package is getting to unwind the length you want to eat.

Buttery, tangy, and rather fun to tear apart into tiny pieces, this cheese makes for a delicious snack on its own. But it also melts easily and wonderfully, creating the kinds of cheese pulls that TikTok influencers dream of. Torn into jumbled masses, it stacks up on Mexican sandwiches such as tortas and cemitas, and melts onto griddles to get slipped inside a warm tortilla. Capitalize on the stretchiness by turning it into a queso-style dip, stuffing it into a pepper before grilling or frying it, or using the strands to make nachos or top a pizza.

Naomi Tomky, author of “The Pacific Northwest Seafood Cookbook,” writes about food and travel.