Indian Cheese

Recipes Guide For Your Grazing Table This Festive Season

Awareness And Sustainable Sourcing Of Cheese

Many of these Indian cheeses survive today because only a handful of families or communities still make them. Bandel cheese, for instance, is reportedly kept alive by the Ghosh family in West Bengal’s Bankura district, with the 11th-generation cheesemaker in the family, Palash Ghosh, supplying cheese to some vendors in Kolkata’s New Market. 

There’s also Kalari cheese, which hails from Jammu and is an integral part of the Dogra community’s cuisine. Sikkim's cheese is chhurpi, and both chhurpi and Kalari have received Geographical Indication (GI) tags in recent years, with Kalari receiving its tag in 2023 and Sikkim chhurpi in 2019. India also maintains over 200 registered indigenous cattle breeds, and demand for cheese made from their milk gives pastoral communities, such as the nomadic Gujjar community, a reason to continue raising them.

Every time a grazing table features Indian cheese instead of an imported substitute, it sends demand back up that chain – to the herder, the cheesemaker, the local market – rather than to a supply chain with no connection to where you live. That is what turns ingredient awareness from a talking point into an actual sourcing habit, and it is a better starting point for a resilient food system than defaulting to whatever is imported and shelf-stable.

Texture, Flavour And Serving Guide For Each Indian Cheese

Each of these Indian cheeses has a distinct texture and flavour, and whether you want it on your cheese or charcuterie board depends on the flavour you are seeking. So here’s a guide to some regional cheese recipes and serving ideas for each:

Bandel Cheese

This cheese-making art is from the town of Bandel in West Bengal's Hooghly district, where Portuguese settlers introduced the technique of deliberately curdling milk. Something orthodox Hindu communities had traditionally avoided, and the Dutch later added smoking to help the cheese survive sea voyages. 

• The smoked version is dry, crumbly, and quite salty, with a strong smoky flavour.

• The unsmoked version is soft and creamy, closer to Indian cottage cheese.

Serving guide: Treat smoked Bandel the way you would treat feta cheese and crumble it over a salad or finish a pasta with it just before serving. On the table itself, set it out in small, crumbled piles next to crackers and a sweet preserve, such as fig or apricot.

Kalari Cheese (Kashmiri Cheese)

Regionally known as Kashmiri cheese or maish krej, and as kaladi in Dogri, this cheese is made by the Dogra community and nomadic Gujjar-Bakarwal herders in the Udhampur district of Jammu. It is dense and stretchy, often described as similar to mozzarella cheese, mild when fresh and sharper, tangier as it ages.

Serving guide: Kalari is usually seared in a pan and cooked in its own fat until the outside turns brown and crispy, while the inside stays soft and pulls like melted mozzarella. Set up a small live station where it is seared to order, then stuff it straight into mini kulchas, the way it is eaten as street food in Jammu.

Chhurpi Cheese

Coming from the yak-herding communities across Sikkim, Darjeeling and the wider Himalayan belt, this cheese exists in two very different forms. 

• Soft chhurpi is mild, tangy and moist, closer to a fresh Indian cottage cheese. 

• Hard chhurpi is dried until dense enough to be considered one of the hardest cheeses in the world, meant to be chewed slowly and savoured.

Serving guide: Use soft chhurpi as the base for a dip, blending it with green chilli and garlic for something close to Bhutan's ema datshi, and serve it with vegetable crudités. Put the hard chhurpi out separately, cut into small chunks alongside nuts and dried fruit, and let guests treat it as it is meant to be eaten.

Topli Paneer

This is a Parsi household cheese named for the cane basket (topli) it is shaped in, and you can see the basket's weave pressed into its surface. Unlike the firm, cubeable Indian cottage cheese found in most gravy dishes, topli paneer is soft, wobbly, and almost custard-like, usually coagulated with rennet and left to rest in its own whey.

Serving guide: Don't cube the topli paneer like the usual one, as its whole appeal is its softness. Serve the disc intact over a fresh tomato sauce or a tomato-chilli dip, and let guests spoon it out at the table.

Kalimpong Cheese

Hailing from West Bengal’s hill town of Kalimpong, the cheese is named after the town; it was introduced by a Swiss missionary in the 19th century and made in a style closer to European mountain cheeses. It is semi-hard, with a crumbly centre and a mild, tangy edible rind that sharpens with maturity.

Serving guide: Cut it into wedges and pair it with fruit (grapes, pears, pomegranates) and crackers, the same way you would serve a gouda or a young cheddar. It is also the easiest of the five to melt into a sandwich if you want a hot option on the table.

Indian Cheese Recipes At A Glance

Building The Indian Cheese Grazing Table

A grazing table focusing on Indian cheese does not need a complete overhaul from what typical ones look like; just like with regional cheeses, you need to include local breads, fruits, and snacks. Swap imported crackers for kulchas, mathri, or thepla, which pair well with the denser textures of Kalari and Bandel, rather than thin water crackers. Use seasonal Indian fruits like pomegranates, guavas, and oranges instead of the usual imported grapes and figs.

• Pair salty, smoky cheeses (bandel, hard chhurpi) with something sweet to offset their intense saltiness, such as jaggery, fruit preserves, or dates.

•  Pair mild, soft cheeses (topli paneer, soft chhurpi, fresh kalari) with something zingy like a tamarind chutney, pickled chillies, or lime juice.

• Mix a couple of familiar European classics into the spread rather than going all-regional. Anything you can afford or like to ease guests into the cheese-tasting experience, especially those trying Bandel or Kalari cheese for the first time.

Make Indian Cheese A Habit

The easiest way to keep these cheeses in circulation is not to confine them to one grazing table each year. Bandel cheese is perfect for year-round use, crumbled into a mixed-vegetable sabzi like korma. Kalari can go into a saloona-style curry or a batch of pakoras. Chhurpi is a regular chutney served alongside momos in Himalayan kitchens. Topli paneer needs nothing beyond a pinch of salt and a spoon. Sourcing them more than once a year is what actually sustains the artisans making them, and a single festive spike in demand does not do that the way steady, repeat sourcing does. Buy from GI-tagged producers, local cheesemakers and farmers' markets to support local cheesemakers.