How to Make Fresh Homemade Goat Cheese (Chèvre)

Name: How to Make Fresh Homemade Goat Cheese (Chèvre)
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 295 min
Ingredients: ½ gallon goat milk; ¼ cup water; 1 teaspoon citric acid ((rounded tsp)); 1 teaspoon diamond crystal kosher salt; dried herbs; honey; sesame seeds; ground nuts; fruit jam

3.91 from 11 votes

Published by Rebecca Eisenberg ⁠— August 12, 2019 (updated July 15, 2026) — 38 Comments

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Get ready to learn how to make creamy and fresh goat cheese at home. This detailed guide is full of tips and tricks, a list of tools, how-tos (and several don’t dos!) to help you successfully make homemade goat cheese using just 4 ingredients!

My creamy DIY goat cheese recipe is 100% worth the effort, and perfect for spreading on crispy crackers, homemade bread, crumbling over salads, and more!

a log of coat cheese in the middle of a wooden board. a slice has been cut off the front of the log. small bowls of capers and mustard are to the left. a stack of crackers is to the right. — Homemade goat cheese is an impressive addition to a cheese or charcuterie board.

This post is your chance to learn from my mistakes: Don't buy a goat cheese-making kit when it's easier and cheaper to buy the ingredients and make your own goat cheese yourself. But what ingredients? And which tools? I've got you covered.

The first time I made my own goat cheese it was a Disaster. Capital-D. I bought a kit from a now-defunct flash sale site, and it had been gathering dust in my pantry for almost 4 years. When I finally decided to open it, literally everything about the simple instructions (just 4 ingredients!!!!) felt impossible.

This was before I went to pastry school and long before I started developing recipes of my own. But I'm still annoyed by how poorly designed this goat cheese kit recipe was.

The gallon of goat milk was too big for my pot, the towel the kit came with was too small. I don't know how the recipe expected me to use my only two human hands to simultaneously tie a towel into a bag to strain the cheese while pouring it, and the little container the kit came with held a mere 6 ounces of finished cheese even though the recipe made a whopping 32 ounces.

And there, folks, is the reason I did not give up on making my own goat cheese.

I wanted ounces and ounces of homemade, fresh, creamy goat's milk cheese.

a close up shot of a cracker spread with goat cheese and topped with capers. other crackers are out of focus around it.

Logs of goat cheese at the store can be expensive and come in that annoying plastic packaging that makes using every last bit a challenge.

So I took another look at the recipe from the kit, trying to figure out just where I'd gone wrong.

My issues, it turned out, were entirely proportional. As in, related to the ridiculous proportions the recipe the kit came with had me use. There was no need to start with a gallon of goat milk. And the comically small towel and container the kit provided me with were in no way up to the task of producing the accompanying recipe.

The "cheese salt" the kit came with? Regular kosher salt. The citric acid? You can buy it at most grocery stores or online.

The kit made everything so much harder than it needed to be.

So now when I make goat cheese, I use a bigger dish towel. I use a colander-over-a-bucket system for straining, and — most crucially — I cut the original recipe in half. It works beautifully and is so much easier to manage.

And now, you too, will be able to transform a half-gallon of goat milk (~$10) into a completely reasonable 12-13 oz of creamy, delicious, homemade goat cheese.

all of the ingredients for making goat cheese measured out and labeled. — You only need four ingredients to make goat cheese from goat milk. *See the recipe card (at the end of the blog post) for quantities.*

The purple carton Meyenberg brand goat milk is the one I've most reliably been able to find in grocery stores. Even though most cheesemaking recipes recommend against using an ultra-pasteurized milk, Meyenberg's ultra-pasteurized goat milk has reliably worked for me when making goat cheese from goat milk.

Citric acid is my ingredient of choice when encouraging the goat milk to separate into curds and whey. I usually find it with the canning supplies, though it can also sometimes be found near the instant pudding/jello mixes, spice aisle, or baking aisle. You can also order it online.

I'm partial to adding in a bit of honey to my goat cheese — I don't measure, I just add, mix, taste, and repeat until I'm satisfied. You can mix herbs, fruit, jam, nuts, seeds, or even balsamic vinegar right into the goat cheese.

Making Goat Cheese, Step-by-Step

Before I begin, I like to let the goat milk sit out for 30 minutes to speed up the separation process. The colder the goat milk is at the start, the longer it will take to reach the right temperature.

I use a 3-quart cast-iron enamel dutch oven when making goat cheese, but a stainless steel sauce pot works just as well and will heat up faster, too. I use a clip-on candy thermometer, but usually end up double-checking with a Thermapen instant-read thermometer, just in case the candy thermometer is moving slow.

A hand pours a quart of goat milk into a light blue cast-iron enameled dutch oven. The inside of the dutch oven is white. In the background there is a dark blue cast iron enameled everyday pan with a lid on. — Pour the goats milk into the pot.

stirring a small amount of water mixed with citric acid together in a small glass bowl. — Dissolve the citric acid into the water.

pouring water and citric acid into the goat milk in the pot. — Add the citric acid to the goat milk.

Keep stirring until the goat milk reaches 185°F. The temperature will fluctuate as the hotter liquid from the bottom is introduced to the cooler liquid from the top, so keep an eye on the thermometer.

As the goat milk heats up, curds will begin form. Stirring helps break them up so that they don't solidify before you're ready.

A close-up of the goat milk mixture in the light-blue cast iron enameled dutch oven after reaching 185 degrees and sitting for 15 minutes. The edges of the goat cheese mixture have tiny flecks of off-white curd in them. — After 15 minutes the curds and whey will visibly separate.

While the goat milk is separating off heat, I set up my straining station. The colander goes inside the bucket, the towel goes inside the colander. The colander should be big enough to hold a half-gallon of milk and comfortably sit inside the bucket, without touching the bottom.

A thin, linen flour sack-style dish towel (like my favorite kitchen towels) is my favorite for straining the cheese. Do not use a terrycloth or textured towel.

A 6 liter cambro bucket with a large, silver, two-handled colander sitting on top lined with a black and white striped towel. — Tuck or tie the ends of the towel through the handles of the colander or clip them to the edges to hold them in place while the cheese strains.

close up pouring the goat cheese mixture through a striped dish towel into a colander. — Pour the goat cheese slowly so you can adjust the towel if you need to.

a plastic 6 liter bucket with a colander in it that is lined with a dish towel. a plastic bowl cover is stretched over the top. the bucket is filled with a couple inches of whey. — Cover and let the whey strain into the bucket.

use a spatula to scrape the cheese down from the sides of the towel.

Scrape the cheese that has collected on the sides of the towel into the middle.

two hands squeezing a black and white striped towel twisted around a ball of goat cheese.

Twist the towel so the cheese is gathered in a ball. Squeeze to press out extra whey.

Thread the twisted end of the towel through the colander handle and let it continue straining that way, or clip the twisted towel to the edge of the colander to continue straining.

The longer you let the mixture strain, the firmer the goat cheese will be.

strained goat cheese in a ball in the bottom of a black and white striped dish towel. — When the cheese is ready, tip it out of the towel into a bowl to add salt and any other flavors.

Rolling a Log of Goat Cheese is Fun and Fancy, Too!

To roll your homemade goat cheese into a log, you'll need to strain it for at least 6 hours. The more liquid you remove from the cheese, the firmer it will be and the easier it is to roll into a log.

Dollop the cheese onto a clean surface and use your hands to gently push and roll it until it forms a log. Don't press too hard, or it will smear.

Wrap the goat cheese log in plastic wrap and twist the ends together tightly to store in the fridge. To slice goat cheese like a pro, freeze it for 5-10 minutes first.

close up of a log of goat cheese coated in everything bagel seasoning on a wooden board. — I like to roll logs of goat cheese in my homemade everything bagel seasoning.

BONUS: Using Whey to Make Bread

Save the whey when you strain the goat cheese curds! You can use whey instead of water (as a 1:1 replacement, no conversions needed) in any bread recipe to make that bread flavor really pop. It's hard to describe just what it does as a flavor, but it's like bread flavor, only... breadier. Bread squared.

I use it in my no knead dutch oven bread, rosemary parmesan bread, and cheddar jalapeno bread recipes all the time. Trust me — nothing is better than eating a slice of your own homemade whey bread, spread with goat cheese and topped with some sun-dried tomatoes, capers, bacon, or whatever other toppings you like.

a small bowl of creamy goat cheese with a spreading knife on top. it is surrounded by crackers. — Homemade goat cheese is so good spread on crackers!

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