Inside the Formula: Honey Cottage Cheese, With…

Simplicity can be deceptive. Simplicity often is underrated. Cottage cheese and honey sounds like a two-ingredient mix. Stir and serve. And if you’re doing this at home for a late afternoon snack, it is.

However, when the National Honey Board’s innovation team set out to develop a honey-sweetened cottage cheese, the goal wasn’t just to combine ingredients. It was to determine the ideal honey type, the correct inclusion level and the sensory balance required to maintain cottage cheese identity without accidentally turning it into something else.

Which is kind of what happened and led to fruited variation that deliciously landed somewhere between cottage cheese and yogurt. If you would like a copy of either formula, email [email protected].

The Ideation of Honey Cottage Cheese
Cottage cheese is having a moment. It’s naturally high in protein, clean label and has found a new market with younger consumers. Those younger consumers are more adventurous than traditional cottage cheese consumers, compelling cottage cheese makers to explore flavored varieties. Honey is a great place to start, because everyone loves honey! Our targets for a honey cottage cheese were straightforward:

• Keep the ingredient statement minimal

• Use honey as the only sweetener

• Maintain cottage cheese’s identity

The ingredient list is minimal as you can imagine: cottage cheese, honey. The biggest challenge was choosing the right honey at the right usage levels. We tried light amber, amber and dark amber honeys. Although all were flavorful, the amber and dark amber honeys overpowered the cottage cheese. The light amber honey hit the perfect notes, delivering a clean sweetness with floral aromatics and a minimal color shift.

Next, we focused on the inclusion level. We started at 7.5% and it was a bit too much. The sensory profile of the cottage cheese started shifting to more of a yogurt. It was delicious, but not something we would consider a cottage cheese.

We also tried 2.5% honey, and that was fine, but did not really impart the essence of honey on the product. It just kind of sweetened the cottage cheese a bit.

At 5% honey, we found the sweet spot. The honey delivered a subtle sweetness that tasted like honey. We also got a nice aromatic lift that enhanced the perception of sweetness without losing the cottage cheese taste. Other benefits we noticed when comparing the honey cottage cheese to just cottage cheese:

• Reduction in watery separation / Increased viscosity

• Smoother taste due to honey’s multi-carbohydrate composition

Let’s Invite Fruit to the Party
During the product development process, a shift in our cottage cheese’s perception started happening when honey’s inclusion levels inched above 7%. As honey levels increased, the cottage cheese’s flavor profile began resembling sweetened yogurt. After perfecting our honey cottage cheese formula, we leaned into this shift and developed an Apple and Honey Cottage Cheese.

We tested quite a few fruit combinations and processing methods and settled on apples and honey, which were sous vide processed to soften the apples and infuse them with honey flavor. With the sweetness from the apples, we found that a 3% honey inclusion was perfect to balance the tang from the cottage cheese, the tart from the apples and the sweetness of the honey.

The addition of apples shifted the perception of the cottage cheese again. We thought we were purposely formulating a more yogurt-style product, but we ended firmly back in the cottage cheese category, just with fruit and honey on the bottom!

So, the format reads yogurt, but the flavor is all cottage cheese and trust us, it’s delicious!

Cottage cheese and honey may look simple on paper, but achieving the right sensory balance required a lot of bench testing. In both formulas, honey proves that even small additions can transform how consumers perceive a product. If you would like the full formulas and processing notes, email [email protected].