What Makes String Cheese So Stringy?

No cheese is as easily snackable as string cheese, so it's nice to know that it doesn't get its characteristic pull-apart texture from artificial additives. Quite the contrary, the original string cheese, which is still popular today, is made from the same ingredients as fresh mozzarella and is, therefore, 100% pure cheese. However, while you can make fresh mozzarella at home with just milk and vinegar, making string cheese is more complicated.

It is essentially low-moisture mozzarella, which is processed differently while still fresh in order to give it that stringy texture. By pulling fresh mozzarella cheese into ropes, the casein proteins in string cheese align in such a way that the cheese becomes stringy. This technique of pulling mozzarella initially started from the need for making smaller units of mozzarella for consumers, so Frank Baker, the cheesemaker credited with making string cheese, started pulling mozzarella into ropes and then portioning it into smaller pieces.

Stringiness isn't exclusively a string cheese property. However, most cheeses only get stringy once they are cooked. Cheeses melt differently, but their reason for turning stringy is always due to their casein proteins clumping together. The same stands for string cheese. As it is repeatedly pulled into ropes, its proteins line up more stringently, which is why it comes apart in such straight lines.

It's quite interesting to see what a drastic effect stretching fresh cheese can have on the final product. For both string cheese and regular mozzarella, the process starts by heating milk curds so they coalesce into a soft, cheesy mass because of the proteins starting to line up and cluster together. To make mozzarella, the fresh cheese is only stretched a few times before being rolled into a ball. This is why mozzarella breaks into chunks. For string cheese, long pieces of the fresh cheese are cut and stretched repeatedly, which gets the proteins to align in that straight, pull-apart line.

Despite the relatively minor difference, both string and regular mozzarella cheeses are often made with different types of milk. The former, which is packaged to be eaten as a snack, is made with low-moisture milk and dried to make it easy to portably eat. Mozzarella, on the other hand, can either be the low-moisture variety or the high-moisture kind, which comes packaged in liquid.

Because of all the extra liquid it holds, high-moisture mozzarella can make your pizza soggy, so it's best to top your pie with the low-moisture kind. In a pinch, you can also top your pizza with string cheese. However, because of how it is processed to be stringy, it doesn't turn into a gooey pool of cheesy goodness like mozzarella and other melting cheeses.