1,561 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 20267735

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 20252,8905

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 20251,8635

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 20251,682

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 20255,9055

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

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

Pre-calibrated pastry dough

Properly cooked! (the taste)

Going out to a restaurant is getting harder at the moment. In France, at least, you have to try and find one that has agreed to pass on the new lower rate of VAT at anything other than a symbolic level, and there aren't many. And then, most importantly, you have to find a good one: one where you...
February 6^th 201119 K 14.6

Raising (or leavening) agents

When we want to make a dough or batter rise when baking, either in patisserie or bread-making, we need to use a raising agent or leavening agent, one of which is called leaven. In the context of baking, a raising agent is simply what "makes something rise". It is a substance which, when added to...
June 16^th 202158 K4.8

Different kinds of pastry and dough

When cooking in general, and particularly in baking, we can make and use many different kinds of pastry and dough. All built on the same "base": flour - a powder to which we add fat, liquid or both to produce the dough which is then cooked. .
November 6^th 2012112 K 14.0