1,560 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 videos

This site uses only a few technical cookies necessary for its operation. By continuing to browse, you accept their use.
To find out more...

Parmesan cheese crusts

If you use Parmesan cheese (Parmigiano Reggiano) in your recipes, you may have already noticed: when you grate it, it becomes (very) difficult near the crust, especially if it is a slightly aged parmesan, as the cheese gets harder and harder.

So we stop grating, leaving some crust on top, and a certain thickness of cheese. What will happen to these crusts?

17 K 4.9/5 (20 reviews)

Keywords for this post:Recovery Leftovers Cheese Savings

Last modified on: September 14^th 2022

For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend

Parmesan cheese crusts

Let's start with an observation: these crusts are generally as hard as wood!
You've done all you can, but it's impossible to grate more, especially by hand - too hard, and you risk injuring your fingertips with the grater if you press too hard.

croutes de parmesan

Should the crusts be thrown away? No, that would be a real shame, but how do you use them? Here are a few tips.

In a hot, liquid preparation

It's very simple: as soon as you prepare something hot and liquid - a soup, gratin or sauce, for example - add your croutons as soon as you start cooking, and let them flavour your preparation deliciously throughout. Remove them before blending (soups) or using, noting that they have become soft and can be eaten.

croutes de parmesan dans un futur gratin

Here are a few examples of recipes where you can use these croutons: Potato gratin (in the milk with the potatoes), béchamel sauce (also in the milk) or leek-potato soup (when you add the water) or parmesan-flavored gratin.
You can also prepare a parmesan milk that you can use later in a recipe.

In the oven

You can place your croutes in the oven for a few minutes at 180°C (360°F), where they will puff up and become crispy, ideal for serving as an aperitif, for example.

croutes de parmesan au four

Parmesan olive oil

Cut your croutes into small pieces, place in a jar with a lid, cover with olive oil and leave to macerate for at least 15 days.
The resulting Parmesan oil will add a pleasant aroma to your sauces or pasta dishes.

To sum up: Parmesan crumbles should not be thrown away - it would be a pity. It's better to use them in cooking, either hot (soups, sauces, in the oven, etc.), or cold (macerated in olive oil).

Lasts posts

Pre-calibrated pastry dough

When making pie dough (shortbread, shortcrust, sweet...), it's always a good idea to make a lot at once, and then divide it into pieces, which you can freeze. I've already pointed out the mistake not to make, which is to form a ball before freezing. It's difficult to roll out afterwards because...
March 9^th 20264445

Butter vs. grease

We often read in a recipe where a pastry is put into a mould that, just before pouring, the mould should be buttered or greased. But what's the difference between these 2 terms?
December 1^st 20252,8145

Getting out of the fridge early

Very often when you're cooking, you need to take food or preparations out of the fridge, to use them in the recipe in progress. There's nothing tricky about this: you just take them out of the fridge and use them, usually immediately, in the recipe. But is this really a good method?
November 24^th 20251,7905

Who's making the croissants?

When you look at a bakery from the outside, you naturally think that in the bakery, the bakers make the bread, and in the laboratory, the pastry chefs make the cakes. It's very often like that, with each of these professions having quite different ways of working, but sometimes there's also one...
November 23^th 20251,631

Oven height

When we put a dish or cake in the oven, we naturally tend to put it on the middle shelf, and that's what we usually do. But in some cases, this position and height can be a little tricky, so let's find out why.
October 8^th 20255,6445

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

Making the most of seeds: Dry roasting

In cooking, and particularly in baking, there are a lot of seeds we can use, such as linseed, sesame, poppy, etc. Usually, recipes simply say to add them just as they are to the mixture or dough. To make a seeded loaf, for example, prepare a plain bread dough as usual, then, towards the end of...
January 30^th 201563 K4.0

What is the difference between bakery and patisserie?

This is a question that you may well have asked yourself and which I will attempt to answer. In France the two trades of "boulangerie" (bakery) and "pâtisserie" (patisserie and confectionery) have always been quite distinct, but where exactly do the boundaries lie? .
February 7^th 2017135 K 14.1

In praise of the whetstone

Have you ever seen a butcher or a chef sharpen his knife before using it? Usually he uses a special tool, a long thin cylinder made of very hard metal. And in a smooth and elegant gesture, he very quickly passes the edge of the knife against the rifle, which makes a very characteristic noise,...
June 5^th 202112 K4.8

Remove bones from fish

Let's talk about fish: It's not a scoop, it's much more pleasant to eat fish from which all the bones have been carefully removed, even if it's a rather painful and time-consuming job, the result is worthy of your efforts. Here are some important points to keep in mind.
October 16^th 202115 K5

The golden-brown finish on puff pastry

Let's take a look at the tricky matter of producing puff pastry with an attractive, golden-brown finish. French pastry chefs call this "dorure" (literally, "gilding"). Behind this quirky term there lurks a real problem (and the solution): when using puff pastry (pâte feuilletée) for a pie, or...
February 8^th 201849 K 24.6