The Best Cheeses for Salads: What to Use and How Much

The best cheese for a salad is the one that matches the salad's texture and its dressing, not whichever block is open in the fridge.

Short version: use crumbly salty cheeses (feta, goat's cheese, Lancashire) for leafy and grain salads, hard shaved cheeses (Parmigiano Reggiano, Pecorino, Manchego) when the dressing is punchy, and soft milky cheeses (mozzarella, burrata, ricotta) with tomatoes and summer fruit. Around 30g per person is usually right.

Get the form right and the cheese lifts everything around it. Get it wrong and you have a bowl of leaves with an argument in it. Here is how to choose, salad by salad.

The three forms of salad cheese

Almost every cheese that works in a salad is doing one of three jobs.

Crumbled. Salty, dry, acidic cheeses broken into thumbnail sized pieces. They season the salad from the inside. Feta, fresh goat's cheese, Lancashire, Cheshire, Caerphilly, Wensleydale, ricotta salata, Gorgonzola Dolce, Roquefort, Stilton.

Shaved. Hard aged cheeses cut into thin sheets with a peeler. They deliver savoury depth without weight and cling to leaves in a way cubes never do. Parmigiano Reggiano, Pecorino Romano or Sardo, Grana Padano, Manchego, Comté, Ossau-Iraty, aged Gouda.

Torn or spooned. Soft, wet, mild cheeses that act as a sauce as much as an ingredient. Mozzarella, burrata, stracciatella, fresh ricotta, young chèvre.

Cubes are the fourth option and usually the worst. Cubed cheese sheds dressing and sits at the bottom of the bowl. Tear, crumble or shave instead.

How much cheese to use

The cheese should complement the salad rather than turn it into a cheese plate with a lettuce problem. Per person:

• Hard shaved cheese: 15 to 20g. Parmigiano Reggiano is intensely savoury and 20g goes a long way.
• Crumbly salty cheese: 30 to 40g. Feta is doing much of your seasoning, so dress with less salt than usual.
• Blue cheese: 15 to 25g. Roquefort and Stilton will bully everything else if you go further.
• Soft milky cheese: 60g, so one 125g ball of burrata or mozzarella between two.
• Halloumi as the main event: 75 to 100g, because at that point it is the protein rather than the accent.

Rule of thumb: cheese should be about a tenth of the bowl by weight. If you can see more cheese than leaves, you have gone past salad.

Leafy salads

Delicate leaves need cheese that seasons rather than smothers.

• Rocket, watercress, radicchio and other bitter leaves: shaved Parmigiano Reggiano or Pecorino. The salt and umami balance the bitterness. Lemon juice, olive oil, black pepper, nothing else.
• Little Gem, cos and butterhead: crumbled feta or young goat's cheese. Both are acidic enough to survive a creamy dressing.
• Spinach: crumbled Stilton or Gorgonzola Dolce with toasted walnuts and a sherry vinegar dressing. If you want to know why blue tastes the way it does, the history of blue cheese explains it.
• Caesar: Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano, finely grated into the dressing and shaved over the top.

Dress the leaves first, toss, then add the cheese. Cheese added early goes soggy and clumps at the bottom of the bowl.

Grain and pulse salads

Freekeh, farro, pearl barley, lentils, chickpeas, giant couscous. Dense and mild, and they need salt and acidity above all.

• Feta is the default and deserves to be. Proper Greek PDO feta, made from sheep's milk with up to 30% goat's, brined and tangy. Crumble it in while the grains are still slightly warm.
• Ricotta salata for the same crumble with less brine. Excellent with lentils, roasted red pepper and mint.
• Manchego, shaved, with chickpeas, cumin, parsley and lemon.
• Halloumi, fried dark in patches and cut into strips, with freekeh, pomegranate and lots of herbs.

Grain salads improve after an hour in the fridge, which is another argument for a firm cheese that will not disintegrate.

Tomato salads

Ripe tomatoes need dairy that is sweet and mild, because the tomatoes supply all the acidity you need.

• Buffalo mozzarella for a classic caprese. Torn, not sliced.
• Burrata if you want richer, and especially if the tomatoes are slightly under ripe, because the cream fills the gap.
• Ricotta, spooned in dollops with a lot of black pepper. Underrated and much cheaper.
• Feta with cucumber, red onion, oregano and no lettuce at all, which is what a Greek salad actually is.

One technique matters more than the cheese: salt the tomatoes 10 minutes before you build the salad and leave them at room temperature. They release juice, which becomes half your dressing.

Fruit and cheese salads

This is where salads get genuinely interesting. Fruit brings sweetness and acid, so the cheese should bring salt, funk or cream.

• Peaches or nectarines with burrata, torn basil, olive oil, flaky salt and chilli flakes.
• Watermelon with feta, mint and lime. Add black olives if you want it saltier.
• Figs with Gorgonzola Dolce or ricotta, honey and toasted hazelnuts.
• Pear with Roquefort or Stilton, chicory leaves and walnuts. The bitterness of chicory is essential here.
• Apple with crumbly Lancashire or a mature Cheddar, celery and mustardy dressing.
• Strawberries with shaved Parmigiano Reggiano and aged balsamic. Sounds mad, works completely.
• Grapes with Manchego, almonds and sherry vinegar.
• Cherries with Ossau-Iraty, the Basque sheep's cheese traditionally served with black cherry jam.

If that last handful appeals, there are more combinations in the same spirit in our guide to unexpected cheese pairings.

Warm salads

Once there is a warm element in the bowl, most fresh cheeses turn greasy or vanish.

• Halloumi holds its shape. Dry it well, fry in a hot dry pan for 2 minutes a side until properly browned, and dress it with lemon while hot so it absorbs.
• Goat's cheese, grilled. A 1cm disc of chèvre log on toasted sourdough under a hot grill for 3 to 4 minutes, sat on dressed leaves. A bistro standard and still excellent.
• Comté or Gruyère, shaved over warm roasted new potatoes, green beans and a mustard vinaigrette while everything is hot enough to soften it slightly.
• Feta, roasted whole with tomatoes and olives, then broken through warm grains.

Avoid mozzarella and burrata anywhere warm. Both go from creamy to oily fast.

Cheeses to be careful with

• Cheddar works in a robust chopped salad with apple, but it is waxy in a delicate leafy one. Grate it coarsely rather than cubing.
• Brie and Camembert go claggy in a dressing and coat the leaves unpleasantly. Better on the side.
• Pre-grated cheese is coated in anti-caking starch that turns pasty when it meets dressing. Grate your own.

Four things that make any cheese salad better

1. Temperature. Take cheese out of the fridge 20 to 30 minutes before serving. Cold cheese tastes of very little.
2. Cut back the salt. With feta, halloumi, Pecorino or blue, use roughly half the salt you would otherwise put in the dressing.
3. Add acid. Lemon juice or a sharp vinegar stops rich cheese sitting heavily.
4. Add crunch. Toasted nuts, seeds or croutons. Soft cheese plus soft leaves plus soft dressing is a texture dead end.

Quick answers

What is the best all round cheese for salads? Feta, if you only want one. It is salty, acidic, crumbles cleanly, keeps for weeks in its brine and works in leafy, grain, tomato and fruit salads alike.

What cheese goes with a Caesar salad? Parmigiano Reggiano, or Grana Padano as a cheaper alternative. Both grated into the dressing and shaved over the finished salad.

Which cheese is best for a low fat salad? Cottage cheese and ricotta are the lightest options. A small amount of a strong cheese like Pecorino also gives plenty of flavour for very little weight.

Can I put cheese in a salad the night before? Firm cheeses like feta, halloumi and hard shavings are fine in a grain salad overnight. Never dress leaves or add soft cheeses until just before serving.

What cheese goes with beetroot? Fresh goat's cheese, every time. The acidity cuts the earthy sweetness. Whipped ricotta is a good second.

How do I get neat cheese shavings? Chill the cheese for 20 minutes, then use a standard vegetable peeler down the long edge of the block.

Find a combination that works, and log it in Cheezus so it is not lost by next summer. The cheese catalogue is a decent place to find your next crumbly candidate.