The Best Shredded Mozzarella

It’s a tempting shortcut: spend a few more dollars for a bag of shredded cheese and save time—and potentially skinned knuckles—by not having to grate the cheese yourself. We usually prefer to buy block mozzarella because it’s so versatile. We can slice it for snacking or sandwiches and shred it as needed when we make pizza, pasta bakes, and such. For nights when we’re in a hurry, we wondered which of the many options at the supermarket was the best shredded option. 

To find out, we put together a lineup of nationally available shredded mozzarellas, including both whole-milk and part-skim options. Panels of America’s Test Kitchen staffers tried them plain and melted on pizza. We also sent the cheeses to an independent lab to get a read on their fat and sodium contents.

Texture was the most glaring problem for most of the brands. None were great when eaten raw—the anti-caking agents made their strands gritty and powdery, and there was no fooling tasters into thinking this was freshly shredded mozzarella. But while tasters said no, grazie to the idea of eating pre-shredded cheese for a snack or atop a salad, most agreed that texture wasn’t as much of an issue when the cheese was melted on pizza. Though many brands were still unacceptably rubbery and stiff when melted, a handful emerged from the oven perfectly stretchy and chewy.

Why were some cheeses better than others when melted? The nutritional labels didn’t reveal any differences in the amounts of cellulose powder or starch coating the products. Instead, lab tests pointed to fat as an important variable the culprit. Our top-ranked cheese was made with whole milk, and tasters noticed that it was pleasantly “rich.” It contained 45 percent fat in its dry solids (a measurement of how much of the cheese is fat once water is removed), the highest levels of the group. 

Our preferences generally reflected the amount of fat contained by each product, with products higher in fat typically outranking products with lower fat content. Fat helps cheese retain a tender, milky texture when melted, which explains why some of these leaner products turned dense and rubbery while fattier cheeses were more tender and stretchy. At 36 percent in their dry solids, the two lowest-ranked cheeses had the lowest fat levels.

Fat also contributes to flavor, so it was no surprise that lower-fat cheeses were seriously lacking in the buttery, rich flavor we expect from mozzarella. It didn’t help that some of these brands were also under- or over-salted; we found the sweet spot for seasoning to be between about 210 and 230 mg of sodium per serving—just enough salt to add a savory complexity that ta... read more