Love this cheese! My favourite use is in cheese and spinach or cheese and chicken enchiladas. As a matter of fact we had cheese and chicken enchiladas for dinner last night using Queso Blanco. As Linda says its a semi soft cheese so not the best for grating as you would a Parmesan. Best as a melting cheese. This was a real hit. This summer I was "surprised" by some unexpected company before dinner....happy hour time. I fried some prosciutto, not a lot just until a bit crispy and then wrapped the hot prosciutto and a basil leaf around squares of Queso Blanco (had no buffalo moz on hand) ...oh my! Delish!

I've not bought cream cheese that i can remember but i would think the un-opened packaging will keep it well past the sell buy/use buy date. (whatever they use)...key note is un-opened. Having just started Spring cleaning my freezer and fridge and lower pantry i did have some off products. So many things do go off and why i don't stock much. Out went everything 2015. My kitchen fridge is counter depth so nothing gets lost being shallow and i keep it minimal with a good rotation of fresh.

I use various cheeses. My favorites are fontina, monterey jacks, cheddars (sharp especially for us), gouda, edam, gruyere, mozzarella, parmesan, romano, and provolone. I have melted asiago once and it came out okay too. The trick is to make your white sauce first and then add the cheese as the milk warms in small chunks or shred it. Stir contantly and don't whisk it, just easy stirs. Velvety sauce everytime is my experience. If you aren't making a sauce, or adding it to other ingredients, then almost anything will do I would think, but fresh cheeses like goat cheese can separate on you, I've had that happen once. Most cheese have a huge fat content and have salt. The fatter the cheese, usually the easier it melts I would think. We eat a LOT of cheese in our family, but we like it fresh cut or in a sauce best. Cheddar and mozzarella are the basic toppings for pizza or like tuna melts. Our favorite cheeses for macaroni and cheeses when I do it homemade is a mixture. I will do tomato sauces or white sauce based cheese sauces based on what tag ends of cheese, or cheese I need to use are in the fridge. Fontina is a favorite white cheese around here for melting. And, I think I forgot plain swiss in my list. But, baby swiss to nice ripe swiss cheese always tastes good mixed with beef. Try fontina cheese mixed in with ground veal, and don't forget to use feta cheese with lamb!!

Well, that's a concept. If you shred your own cheddar, you won't have to figure out how to store the annoying bags. About a month ago, I started revisiting how I eat and what I eat. So many posts on this forum talked about actual cooking, how and where folks are going to store and eat actual food. My DH travels a lot at the moment, and I realized my food consumption had devolved to pastries, wheat thins and cheese, and...if he was home, some protein and veggies at dinner. My diet was balanced because I ate several kinds of pastries. :) I've been sober for seven years, but I realized my eating was totally addictive and mindless. Physically I'm pretty active with our little "ranch", so that helped counterbalance, I think, but I began reworking the other side of the equation, what and how I eat. Our CSA started back up at just the right time. Anyway, after beacham's condiment post, I cleaned out our refrigerator and noticed the cheese kind of sprawled out on the top shelf, being ignored. I think a plastic bin on a shelf is still the best answer for us and I'll look for the correct size.