Do you cook with bagged cheeses or grate your own and why?

I’m really lazy about cooking. I used bagged cheese, bagged salad, bagged berries, bagged bacon, even bagged chopped onions. I also love those little steamed vegetable packets you microwave. not because the veggies taste particularly good bu because I avoid having to bring out pots and pans whenever possible.

Every once in a while I’ll buy a chunk of good parm cheese and grate that onto my pizza or pasta for a change of pace, but of course the pasta I cook is usually the refrigerated kind that comes in a bag.

Use a hand-grater. Just keep your knuckles out of the way. It’s easy and cleans up in a snap with hot water and soap. And costs bubkes.

I’ve owned one of these for probably forty years.

Fifteen bucks. I simply grate mine on a plate.

I usually prefer to grate my own; the quality is better.

I grate my own. It tastes fresher because it hasn’t been drying out in the fridge. I’ll get the bagged if I know I’m going to use it immediately and the quantity is great, such as a big pan of lasagna.

We nearly always have bagged shredded cheese in our house, so that’s what we use to top things with (salads, pizzas, nachos). We also nearly always have blocks of cheese in our house, and if we’re cooking something that has cheese mixed in to the dish (mac & cheese, certain casseroles) we usually shred our own. The pros and cons, as I see them:

Pre-shredded cheese includes a powdery substance that stops it from clumping up, which makes it easier to throw a handful of cheese on top of something. It’s a convenient time saver, and there’s nothing extra to wash. It’s more expensive, and you’re limited in cheese choice.

Hand-shredded cheese allows you to pick virtually any cheese or combinations of cheeses you want to use, and it costs less (depending on the cheese(s) you choose). Combining cheeses can add excellent flavor! My husband’s mac & cheese always has multiple kinds of cheese in it, and it’s fantastic. It takes longer, clumps a lot and hurts my hands. Washing a cheese grater is a pain in the ass.

Buy bagged 95% of the time. Because it is easier and I buy several bags of different types to enjoy at my leisure.

Bagged. It lasts longer, as my husband is likely to eat any large blocks of cheese whole before I get home to cook.

I like to grate my own cheddar cheese because it tastes better. I use a hand grater and, to be honest, I didn’t know there was such a thing as an electric grater until now. Grating by hand isn’t hard to do.

Now, parmesan and mozerella, I buy those bagged.

I grate my own cheese because it is less expensive to buy the blocks. Plus, it is easier to measure. I use what @gailcalled uses (first link).

We grate our own by hand. We prefer to use fresh cheeses, and buy cheese from a local dairy farm that makes a great variety of raw milk cheeses. We even took a class there and made our own ricotta and mozzarella!

I’ve never understood why people buy pre-grated cheese, and I’ve never even heard of an electric cheese grater. Is it really that exhausting to grate cheese manually?

I’ve never liked the boxy cheese graters, because I find it irksome that they have three sides which I never use. Also, the side with the tiny holes keeps catching on things, like, say, my fingers. I have one like this instead.

^^^What? You don’t think that grated knuckle adds a little extra something to a homemade pizza?

@gailcalled Yes, but it takes a little extra something away from my thumb!

^^So? You have a spare on the other hand.

It’s true that I only use the medium grate and the shaving sides. The tiny holes are a waste.

@gailcalled I would love to know why those tiny holes claim so much real estate on the box cheese grater. Who is using these torture devices and why?

When I cook with grated cheese, which isn’t often, I usually buy it already grated. I only really use it in Italian dishes, that would be mozerella cheese, which can be annoying to grate since it is rather soft. There are a few other dishes I make that call for grated cheese, but I make them very rarely

I have a simple hand grater that I have at the ready if I ever spur of the moment need to grate some cheese, or grate something else. That happens maybe 2 times a year. I just have a flat rectangular grater, not a box one, that does not take up a lot of space, I store it in a drawer, and is there for emergencies.

For the most part when I put cheese on something I just slice it thin, or in smallish pieces.

By the way, food processesors are fanstastic for grating if you grate things often.

Bagged cheese here.

Grate my own

Why? Because I own a cheese grater and have to justify that to myself.

We have both a box grater and a flat one. The flat one is good if you only need a little bit of grated cheese, say fresh Parmesan sprinkled directly onto a plate of Italian food. But for mac & cheese, you need a lot of cheese, so the box grater comes in handy. I’ve never used 3 sides of the thing, though!

I grate my own with a non electric cheese grater. Why? I think you get more for your money from buying a normal block of cheese than the bags of already grated cheese. Also, I don’t have cheese grated very much so it’s easier to buy a block and prepare it how I wish.

I grate my own but I use a hand-grater that cost £2. It’s more economical, a block takes up less space in the fridge and it lasts longer.

@gailcalled and @glacial: FYI the tiny holes on the grater are for when a recipe calls for orange rinds or other rinds – that’s one example can think of. I use that side on occasion. When adding rinds to a recipe, you don’t want large chunks, you want little tiny pieces that can blend into whatever you’re making (i.e. a quick bread like cranberry bread).

^^ and grinding nutmeg would be another example.

@jca That’s what I use my rasp for. :)

@jca; The tiny holes on the block grater are so difficult to use that I have an entirely different gadget Iwhich I love and use regularly) for citrus fruit rinds. If I bothered to grate nutmeg, I’d probably get my own special nutmeg grater, also even though I am generally not a fan of too many gadgets

Lemon zester

Yes, the nutmeg grater is smaller.

I don’t grate rinds often enough to justify buying a lemon zester. I have a lot of kitchen gadgets but since I hardly ever cook, I hardly ever use them. I bake more than I cook, and even that is few and far between.