cottage cheese

American  

noun

• cottage cheeses
  plural

1. an extremely soft, or loose, white, mild-flavored cheese made from skim-milk curds, usually without rennet.

---

cottage cheese British  

noun

1. a mild loose soft white cheese made from skimmed milk curds

---

Regionalisms

Farmer cheese and farmer's cheese are widely used throughout the U.S. as terms for a kind of cottage cheese. This same kind of cheese, with varying curd size and sourness, is also called sour-milk cheese in Eastern New England; curd or curd cheese, chiefly in the Northeastern and Southern U.S.; pot cheese, chiefly in the Hudson Valley; smearcase, chiefly in the North Midland U.S., and sometimes cream cheese in the Gulf States.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• cottage cheeses
  plural

---

Etymology

Origin of cottage cheese

An Americanism dating back to 1840–50

---

Compare meaning

How does cottage-cheese compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• cottage cheese vs. cream cheese
• ricotta vs. cottage cheese

---

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cottage cheese

She set off after midnight from her village in central Ukraine to reach Kyiv before dawn and sell milk, sour cream, butter and cottage cheese from her own cows.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 4, 2026

Mundhe has enforced bans on using newspapers to wrap food, synthetic dyes and banned analogue paneer - non-dairy cottage cheese substitutes.

From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026

Vegetarian food influencers demonstrate non-meat ways to increase protein in everyday meals with Greek yogurt, beans and cottage cheese.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2026

Veggies, salads, pizza, wings, fries, caviar, pickles, cottage cheese, ice cream—they’re all eminently ranchable.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

He’d eaten extra helpings of cantaloupe and cottage cheese, so it was a colorful and fragrant display.

From "Not Nothing" by Gayle Forman

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---