Forum: cooking.stackexchange.com
Tags: <cheese><pasta>
Title: Cheeses for pastas, off the beaten path
Question: I'm looking for some cheese recommendations to serve grated or shredded over pasta. However I'd like to get away from the obvious ones that everybody knows, such as parmesan, mozarella, ricotta, or even feta. What other delicious cheeses are there that go well with pastas?

Answers:
sents: text: try gruyere or gouda
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/947/dave thieben
score: 8
sents: text: Pecorino romano is my absolute favorite cheese for pretty much any situation, especially for putting on pasta.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/969/Josh Ourisman
score: 8
sents: text: Asiago is very similar to Parmesan and crumbles well.
text: Smoked gouda may also prove to give a creamy, buttery flavor to certain pastas.
text: Or you could try gorgonzola, fontina, romano, or many more.
text: This site may help you to find more that you'd be interested in: http://www.cheese.com/
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/296/Vecta
score: 6
sents: text: try breaking broccoli into very small florets and steaming, then warming a mild blue cheese like dolcelatte with some cream, adding the florets and mixing through the pasta.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/210/Sam Holder
score: 4
sents: text: I've just been given some good Spanish Manchego cheese.
text: It's hard enough to be gratable, but stil quite fatty.
text: I haven't made pasta in a while, but I tasted some, and I think it would go well with pasta if the sauce isn't too rich.
text: Another recommendation, if your pasta has greens in it, like spinach or mangold, would be to use some nice blue cheese like roquefort.
text: Stilton works too, but the flavour is very powerful.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/611/Carmi
score: 4
sents: text: During my college days, we used to go to the Old Spaghetti Factory for cheap eats.
text: Most of the stuff was horrible (cloyingly sweet sauces served over overcooked pasta) but one thing I really enjoyed was the [mizithra][1] cheese and browned butter sauce.
text: It's a Greek goat's milk cheese that has a great tangy flavor when aged a bit.
text: Their menus used to state that Homer (Odyssey not Simpson) ate the stuff.
text: I still crave it!
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/948/ant
score: 2
sents: text: at the cheese section of your favorite grocery store: Pick a random hard cheese Freeze it Grate it on top of your pasta EDIT
text: What I meant is, that there are a lot of cheeses out there, and the hard ones (Except for blue cheese) really go well grated.
text: So go and get that purple-red hard cheese and try it out.
text: I personally don't like grated cheese on my pasta
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/87/dassouki
score: 2
sents: text: Where I live (central Texas)
text: our local grocery stores are overrun with "Beemster" Dutch cheeses.
text: They're all basically Gouda-like semi-soft cheeses, though there's an aged one that's hard enough to grate.
text: However, the "garlic" variety is a great addition to a cheese sauce.
text: In fact, that plus Ford Farm "Coastal" cheddar makes a cheese sauce that's almost perfect.
text: Also, the Irish cheese marketed as "Ivernia" is sort-of like a Parmesan, but quite tasty in its own right.
text: Soft chevre makes a really nice addition to cheese sauces, or it can be just dropped in chunks on pasta for a more salad-like dish.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/557/Pointy
score: 1
sents: text: I do like to use fontina in creamy or mushroomy sauces in pasta and also sometimes reblochon (though I normally use this more with potatoes).
text: But it depends so much upon what else you are putting with the pasta and what you can get hold of, french cheese especially are often not (easily) available much outside their region.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2010/NBenatar
score: 1
sents: text: I've been doing Mizithra lately, as I've been eating less cow-milk based cheeses.
text: With a bit of olive oil, garlic, and scallions, you get nice top notes, full body, and the "pastoral" finish of a solid sheep's cheese.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1461/Kerrizor
score: 0
sents: text: Gran Padano is worth looking for as an alternative to Parmesan
text: - it's very similar (hard, salty) but, in the UK at least, is about two-thirds of the price :-)
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1474/PhilPursglove
score: 0
sents: text: Roquefort is great on pasta.
text: Even better, you can make a roquefort sauce by melting it with some cream and black pepper.
text: Gorgonzola is good as well...
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1118/Guillaume
score: 0
sents: text: Can't go wrong with a bit of Raclette...
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1824/Nick
score: 0
sents: text: Another good cheese to try with pasta is Tallegio , this is a soft cheese so you won't be able to grate it
text: but it goes great with a bit of cream and some broccoli.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1515/Alistair Nelson
score: 0

Summary of the answers:
Gran Padano, Asiago and Pecorino Romano are good substitutes for parmesan, while Gruyere, Tallegio, Roquefort and Gouda can be good with pasta. A mild blue cheese like Dolcelatte can go well with steamed broccoli, and Raclette, Manchego and others are worth trying.
For hard cheeses you can try gruyere, gouda, manchego, gran padano and pecorino. For softer cheeses you can try tallegio, roquefort, gorgonzola and fontina, amongst others.