How To Shred Your Own Cheese

Inside: Dump the overpriced bags of cheese and try this simple tip for how to shred your own cheese. It only takes a few minutes and will save you money. 

I am a creature of habit. Every Thursday morning at the same time I go do my grocery shopping. I like to go to Aldi first and then I head over to Meijer to get all the deals there. Believe it or not, there are a few people like me that do the same exact thing. We all kind of start at Aldi at the same time and then head over to Meijer.

Because we see each other every week we often talk about what is on sale or frugal food tips. A couple of months ago, one of them mentioned that they shred their own block cheese to save money. I had always known that I was paying so much more for shredded cheese, but I never considered shredding it myself. So, I grabbed the food processor and started shredding. Sure enough, it works great. To shred your own cheese easy and only takes a few minutes and can save you some cash.

It is very simple to shred your own cheese. You will want to start with a very cold block of cheese. I recommend sticking it in the freezer for about 30 minutes before you go to shred it. This will help the cheese shred better. After about 30 minutes take it out of the freezer, remove from the packaging and break the block in half. Because the cheese is so cold it should easily break in half.

You can shred your own cheese by hand with a shredder, but that will take a while. I recommend using a food processor to quickly shred the cheese. You will want to use the top disk on the food processor, not the blade. Just add the top disk and then put on your lid. Make sure you take out the bottom blade of your food processor first. If not you will have a cheesy mess on your hands. Yup, I forgot the blade in the food processor the first time I tried it. 😉

Place one of the half blocks in and start shredding. It only takes about 20 seconds to shred each half block. Once you have shredded all of the cheese you can store it in a ziploc bag. You can put about 2 cups in each ziploc bag.

If you don't like the way the cheese sticks together you can add a 1/2 teaspoon of corn starch to the baggie before you add the cheese. Then just shake up the cheese in the bag and the corn starch adds a nice coating to keep the cheese from sticking together.

It's just that easy. It only takes a few minutes to do and you can save some money. I have found that I get about 3-4 cups from one 8 oz. block of cheese. If you are an Aldi shopper they often have the block cheese on sale for $1.29. Makes each cup of cheese about $.43. That is about half the price of the Aldi pre-shredded cheese.

So stop buying those overpriced bags of shredded cheese and take a few minutes to shred your own cheese. It's so easy to do and can save you more money. Want some more money saving tips? Check out how to cook dried beans in a slow cooker.