Despite any marketing about how long a cheese has been aging, all cheese will spoil after a while. This spoilage occurs even more quickly for sliced and shredded cheese because of the increased amount of exposed surface; in other words, more surface for mold to grow on and spoil. Keep the cheese as clean, dry and away from air as possible to make it last longer, and freeze any you know you can't eat within a few days of opening the package.
Step 1
Remove from the package all the cheese slices that you think you won't be able to eat within a week. The Tillamook cheese company warns you shouldn't touch cheese you're not going to use with bare hands; use a spatula, tongs or some other utensil to grab the slices because you don't want any substances from your hands getting on the cheese left in the package. Even when your skin is clean, it contains oils and bacteria that can help eventually degrade items. Also remove slices you think you might eat cooked, like in grilled cheese sandwiches. Put the remaining slices in the refrigerator temporarily.
Step 2
Put all of the slices you separated out in a freezer bag, separated with pieces of freezer-safe wrap. Put pre-wrapped slices in a freezer bag, too, as the wrapping on the individual slices might not have enough of a seal to keep out moisture. Press as much of the air out of the bag as you can. Keep the bag in the freezer, and use slices from this bag if you plan to cook or melt the cheese. Frozen cheese melts quite well and still tastes like cheese, but freezing can change the texture just enough so that it's not always that desirable as a fresh, uncooked food.
Step 3
Place two layers of plastic wrap, one on top of the other, on a table.
Step 4
Take the remaining slices out of the refrigerator and, with a clean utensil, transfer one of them to the plastic wrap. Wrap it up well and ensure no air is in the wrapped bundle to the best of your ability.
Step 5
Wrap each slice of cheese as you did in Step 4 and put all the wrapped slices into another bag that you can seal tightly. Some companies like Tillamook recommend keeping cheese in its original packaging, but this might not retain enough of a seal after you close it to keep the cheese fresh. The Clemson Cooperative Extension recommends double-wrapping cheese and then placing it into an additional container as a way to hold off spoilage and mold. The more layers you have between the cheese and the air, the better protected the cheese will be.
Step 6
Keep the cheese in a colder part of your refrigerator, and return the container to this spot after removing slices.
Tips and Warnings
- Don't open pre-packaged cheese until you need to. These often have extensive refrigerated shelf lives; Ochef notes one example of pre-wrapped slices of American cheese that have an in-refrigerator shelf life of almost a year, but Tillamook warns opening a package of cheese reduces the refrigerated shelf life to less than a week. Wrapping each slice lets you remove cheese as needed without exposing all of the cheese to air. This helps the remaining cheese stay fresher for a longer time.
Things You'll Need
- Spatula, tongs or another utensil
- Freezer bags
- Plastic wrap
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