Parmesan is so expensive...

stephen77

some of these cheaper parmesan have been matured for less time.
eg the sainsbury back to basic is 12 months and not the 18 or 24 months.

So while cheaper you may have to use more to get the same flavour through especially if putting it in mash or your salads etc.

stephen77

frugal_shopper wrote: »

Devon cheese sell it in 10kg quantities at a cost of £4.80 per kg with free delivery. It arrives grated & packed in 5x2kg bags, it can be frozen & used straight from the freezer.
http://devoncheese.com/live/shop.php?nav=shop&cat=55#tabSHOP

But its not parmesan. Its Italian style hard cheese.

While I have not tried this bought from the Devon company.
I may have tried it via another wholesaler selling the same cheese.

I have yet to find a italian hard style cheese that is as good quality as 20+ month old parmesan when tasting side by side.

I have been invloved in cheese buying and tried more than my fair share of cheese from many cheese supliers.

However I do like Italian hard cheese and can not argue with that price.
Just as long as you can eat 10kg of cheese before it goes mouldy.

jm2926

I have some Lidl parmesan here. It is matured for 24 months, packet cost £3.25, which is £12.89/kilo

fran-o

we buy grana padano rather than parmesan to save a few pennies! I also grate the lot as soon as I open it and freeze the gratings to stop it going mouldy in the fridge.

SUESMITH_2

i buy gran padano too.

when we were in italy last year i bought a huge lump much cheaper than here and it lasted for ages - was v sad when we had eaten it all and i had to go back to buying it here

LoneRifle

If your children are not picky there's also the grated Italian hard cheese from the Sainsbury's Basics range, details here:

http://backtosainsburysbasics.blogspot.com/2010/08/chicken-fried-steak-parmigiana.html

silverjay

Just use cheddar

frugal_shopper_2

stephen77 wrote: »

But its not parmesan. Its Italian style hard cheese.

While I have not tried this bought from the Devon company.
I may have tried it via another wholesaler selling the same cheese.

I have yet to find a italian hard style cheese that is as good quality as 20+ month old parmesan when tasting side by side.

I have been invloved in cheese buying and tried more than my fair share of cheese from many cheese supliers.

However I do like Italian hard cheese and can not argue with that price.
Just as long as you can eat 10kg of cheese before it goes mouldy.

Devon cheese is the retail side of http://www.europeanfoods.co.uk (for small orders less than 250kg) who specialises in analogue which is awful stuff that should not be inflicted on anyone however the real cheese they sell seems to be good quality.

As I said the cheese can be frozen & you can use it straight from the freezer or you can defrost small quantities at a time so eating it before it goes mouldy is not a problem. What is a problem is the temptation to use more cheese than you normally would just because you have a lot of it to hand.

LoneRifle wrote: »

If your children are not picky there's also the grated Italian hard cheese from the Sainsbury's Basics range, details here:

http://backtosainsburysbasics.blogspot.com/2010/08/chicken-fried-steak-parmigiana.html

The dehydrated castelli cheese from tesco or the sainsburys basics one are both £10.16 per kg. In both instances I would rather pay out a couple of quid extra per kg & get fresh from lidl/aldi instead if just buying small quantities, the dried one is not worth eating IMO.

geordie_joe

silverjay wrote: »

Just use cheddar

Cheddar is horrid :eek:

If you're going to buy cheese, buy Cheshire.

LoneRifle

richardw wrote: »

There's a Sainsbury's basics hard cheese http://backtosainsburysbasics.blogspot.com/2011/01/poor-mans-pesto.html

It appears missing from the mysupermarket website now. I'll investigate by hopping over to my local.

frugal_shopper wrote: »

The dehydrated castelli cheese from tesco or the sainsburys basics one are both £10.16 per kg. In both instances I would rather pay out a couple of quid extra per kg & get fresh from lidl/aldi instead if just buying small quantities, the dried one is not worth eating IMO.

Good point, that said I do appreciate the convenience of having a shaker of long-lasting parmesan-like cheese that I can grab from the fridge, rather than having to dig it out from the freezer