Alton Brown's Key Ingredient Swap For Tangier Cheesecake

There's a bit of effort that goes into a homemade cheesecake. So, if you're committed to making the dessert from scratch, it's essential to know what you're doing, which is making a cake out of cream cheese, right? For most of us that's a yes, but Alton Brown's cheesecake recipe swaps the traditional cream cheese with an unlikely ingredient: cottage cheese. Yes, the cottage cheese that your grandparents might eat for breakfast that's now a trendy ingredient thanks to TikTok food influencers will make your homemade cheesecake tangier — and even more delicious.

Give the swap a try before scoffing at it, because clearly Brown is a chef we can trust considering his long list of accolades, stints on popular cooking shows, and useful tips for home chefs. In his recipe, Brown combines cottage cheese, sour cream, sugar, lemon juice and zest, eggs, and vanilla for the filling. Of course, his cheesecake recipe is not the only one floating around on the Internet that substitutes cottage cheese for cream cheese, so we think it's worth a try if you appreciate a tangy dessert.

If you need more convincing, let's get into why cottage cheese works as an alternative to cream cheese. For starters, cottage cheese has a tangier profile to offset the sweetness of the sugars used in the cake. It's also packed with proteins and other nutrients. The only caveat is its consistency, so you might want to blend it with liquids like heavy cream or half-and-half when baking. In his recipe, Brown combines the cottage cheese with sugar first, then adds the sour cream and other ingredients for the filling.

To finish off your Alton Brown-inspired cottage cheese cheesecake, add some toppings to give the dessert more flavor and texture. To be clear, the chef says in his recipe description that he prefers it plain and suggests using only a couple of cherries in sauce for garnish. But you can also elevate your cheesecake with other fruits like blueberries, raspberries, or strawberries to brighten up the cake with fresh flavors. For crunch, consider a topping made with nuts like pecans, pistachios, or walnuts. And if you're someone who likes a truly decadent desert, top the cheesecake with crumbled cookies like Oreos, peanut butter cups, or your favorite candy bar.