A little reason to celebrate
National Cheese Day
Food ยท June 4
A day for cheese in all its forms, from mild fresh curds to sharp aged wheels, and the many ways Americans eat it.
National Cheese Day falls on Friday, June 4, 2027. That is 220 days away.
Cheese starts as milk. Add a culture and an enzyme called rennet (or an acid), and the milk separates into solid curds and liquid whey. What happens next, pressing, salting, aging, decides whether you end up with soft ricotta or a hard wedge you need a good knife for.
That range is the appeal. A fresh mozzarella tastes of milk and not much else. A cheddar left to age grows sharper and a little crumbly, sometimes with tiny crunchy crystals. Blue cheeses get their veins from mold that cheesemakers add on purpose. Some cheeses come from cow's milk, others from goat's or sheep's milk, and each brings its own tang.
In American kitchens, cheese shows up nearly everywhere: melted on burgers, baked into macaroni, folded into omelets, sliced onto crackers. Plenty of people mark the day simply by eating more of it than usual, which takes very little planning. Others use it as a nudge to try something new from the deli counter instead of the usual block.
If you put together a cheese plate, let the cheese sit out for a while before serving. Cold mutes flavor, and most cheeses taste fuller closer to room temperature. A mix of textures, one soft, one firm, one strong, makes a plate more interesting than three similar choices.
Wrapped in wax paper or cheese paper rather than tight plastic, a good hard cheese keeps well in the fridge and will still be there for tomorrow's sandwich.
Ways to celebrate
- Try one cheese you have never tasted before.
- Build a small plate with one soft, one firm and one strong cheese.
- Make grilled cheese with two different cheeses melted together.
- Ask at a deli counter for a sample of an aged cheese.
Dates
| Year | Date |
|---|---|
| 2026 | Thursday, June 4 |
| 2027 | Friday, June 4 |
| 2028 | Sunday, June 4 |
| 2029 | Monday, June 4 |
| 2030 | Tuesday, June 4 |
Also on June 4
Categories: Food days