Jacques Pépin's Go-To Method For Re-Inventing Leftover Cheese Scraps

If you often cook with cheese, chances are you have more than one type in your refrigerator at a time. Whether it be slices of American for cheeseburgers or shredded mozzarella for a homemade pizza, having different cheeses on hand is the key to making all kinds of recipes. While there are many kinds of cheese that are versatile enough to be used in several dishes, sometimes it's hard to find multiple uses and pairings for those gourmet wedges of Camembert and Brie. You can always use high-melting cheeses like cheddar and jack in a mac and cheese (via Premio), but stronger-tasting varieties usually end up getting left in the refrigerator after their initial use. Especially when making charcuterie boards, you're bound to have at least a few cubes left over.

If you don't want to settle for making another charcuterie board with the scraps (or simply to avoid letting the leftovers rot in the fridge), according to Jacques Pépin, there's a way to reinvent them into something better.

A technique he learned from his father, Jacques Pépin uses his leftover cheese to make a French cheese spread called fromage fort (via Food & Wine). Per Bon Appétit, along with butter, wine, and herbs, it comes together with any combination of cheeses. The unique, intense flavor that results is where fromage fort — which translates to "strong cheese" in French — gets its name.

Instead of the traditional butter and herbs, Pépin shared with Food & Wine that he learned from his father to substitute the traditional butter and herbs with his mother's leek broth and fresh garlic. For the wine and cheese elements, his father would opt for white wine, and Camembert, Brie, Swiss, blue, and goat cheese. Pépin's own recipe is not much different, though he no longer uses leek broth and adds salt and pepper to taste. To give the fromage fort a more intense flavor, Pépin says he lets it sit for up to a week and a half before blitzing it in a food processor and toasting under the broiler.

Fromage fort can technically be made with any leftover cheese, but there are some combinations that taste better than others. You can't go wrong with Jacques Pépin's go-to of Camembert, Brie, Swiss, blue, and goat cheese, but if you plan to change it up, you'll want to be mindful of the salty and sharp varieties because they will overpower fromage fort, Bon Appétit says. For best results, therefore, use 3 to 4 ounces of mild cheese for every 1 to 2 ounces of strong cheese. Pépin tells Food52 that his wife prefers her fromage fort very mild, so the ratio is ultimately up to you.

Once you find a combination of cheese you're happy with, you'll want to remove the rinds and grate larger pieces, before adding the wine (and butter, if you prefer), and blending until smooth as suggested by Food Network. To serve, Pépin tells Food52 you can use fromage fort as a spread, or take it a step further and put it in cream puff dough to make gougères. Either way, it's a delicious way to make use of your leftover cheese scraps and as an added bonus you can store it in the freezer until you're ready to enjoy it.