Modernist Cuisine Cheese Sauce -- for one?

[newchef]

So I've now found myself at the water's edge of Modernist Cuisine.  Specifically, using sodium citrate for emulsifying all kinds of cheeses.  What I'm after is making an emulsified Parmesan sauce as well as another emulsified cheese sauce (most likely using Cheddar or Colby) that I can freeze and use later.  I'm a single guy and am no stranger of tweaking recipes for freezing but I haven't done it for modernist stuff yet.  I'd love to make a big batch of cheese sauce, freeze it into ice cubes for up to 3 months or so, and then take a few cubes out to thaw on a weeknight and toss with pasta, drizzle over veggies, etc.

 

I looked at the modernist cuisine FAQ and saw this specific post about the cheese sauce that is "probably" freeze-able because it uses something called carageenan.  Has anyone been able to freeze sauce and keep it frozen for, say, a few months?  And not have to use carageenan?

 

Thanks!

Edited May 26, 2020 by newchef (log)

[jimb0]

You can totally do that. I tend not to bother using anything but sodium citrate and sometimes a little starch for baked applications, but you can, of course, use one of the carrageenans or some sodium hexametaphosphate. Prepare it as you would to eat that day, and let it come to room temp and freeze. 
 

Freezing it and then thawing it will probably break your emulsion, but you should be able to heat it up and whisk it back together easily enough. It’s a handy way of prepping sauce that’s pre-measured, but I’ll also mention that if you aren’t happy with the results/workflow, these sauces are very easy to prep in a microwave while you do other stuff - heat your water and sodium citrate to boiling, dump in your shredded cheese, and whisk. I even get lazy with stuff like cheddar and just melt big blocks of it on a plate and whisk that in. Use the microwave to reheat if it doesn’t come together quickly enough. 

[newchef]

Thanks so much for your reply!  

 

Your suggestion of making the cheese "to order" while I'm cooking seems the best option instead of making a whole batch and freezing it into individual serving portions.  

 

Do you have a ratio for the amount of citrate to add to the water and cheese?  Say, for example, I had 35g of monterey jack that I wanted to make into a sauce, I'd like to know how much water and citrate to use to make a sauce.

 

Thanks!

[Dave the Cook]

Melty Cheese Calculator

[newchef]

Wow, that is so awesome!  Thank you.

[jimb0]

Yeah, there's the calculator but I'll mention I tend to add 4.5% sodium citrate by weight of cheese (that way you don't need to look it up every time to use). The amount of water that gets added depends on what I'm doing with it. Dips get more water (say, nearly 1:1) than some other things. You can even use quite a bit less water and make cheese slices.

Edited June 3, 2020 by jimb0 (log)