Please Stop Wrapping Your Cheese in Plastic

Cheese is precious, and like a gem nestled in a protective jewelry box, so should your cheese be properly and safely stored. But for too long, I (and pretty much everyone I know, TBH) have just been keeping cheese in whatever package it came in, usually plastic wrap. But it turns out cheese has some very specific needs if you want to keep it at its best (#relatable). This guide will walk you through the simple changes you can make to ensure your little cheese babies sitting in the fridge can live up to their full potential instead of turning into rotten teenagers screaming, “You’re LITERALLY suffocating me!”

More:Eating This Amount of Cheese Is Good for Your Heart

You’re storing your cheese wrong

First things first, you’ve got to stop wrapping cheese in plastic wrap, because while that wedge of Brie might seem inanimate, it turns out cheese is actually… alive! Plastic wrap makes the cheese take on a funky flavor, and considering the ridiculous amount of money most of us are willing to spend on cheese, we want to make sure it tastes just as good on Day 4 as it did on Day 1. It makes it hard for the cheese to breathe, which can especially speed up the spoilage of soft and runny cheeses like Brie.

The best way to store cheese

Cheese should be wrapped in wax paper or parchment paper and kept in one of the lower drawers in your refrigerator. The temperature and humidity there remain consistent, protected from the opening and closing of the door. If you have a problem with cheese drying out when you use this method, you can also loosely wrap the cheese in plastic wrap or foil so long as they’re only coming into contact with the paper wrapped around the cheese, and not the cheese itself. You can also buy special cheese paper, which helps keep your cheese from drying out. Softer cheeses that are hard to wrap should be taken out of the plastic they came in and placed on a piece of wax paper in an airtight container.

Now that you know how to best care for and nurture your cheese, it’s probably time for a shopping spree, right? I’ll trade you a bite of crumbly aged Gouda for a schmear of Cambozola!