Fontal

Fontal: A Friendly, Versatile Cheese

When you're looking for an all-around great cheese for melting, cooking, snacking, and entertaining, fontal cheese is a fabulous find. This friendly cousin of Italy's fontina cheese is a mild-flavored, semi-hard cow's milk variety with a sweet and buttery flavor. Fontal melts like a dream and enhances any recipe with creamy, slightly nutty flavors. Whether you grate this slightly sweet cheese over omelets, melt it into pasta, or cube it up for a grazing board, fontal cheese always brings the milky goodness.

Wisconsin's Favorite Fontal Cheese

If you're eating fontal from the State of Cheese, it probably comes from Cello Cheese, an artisan cheese company with 75 years of experience breathing new life into Old World cheesemaking recipes. Recognizing how easily this elastic variety absorbs other herbs and spices, the cheesemakers at Cello add spiced rubs to their fontal cheeses to explore more flavor dimensions. From smoky paprika, peppercorns, and pumpkin spices to Italian herbs to cocoa and coffee, the extra flavors added to fontal from Cello Cheese open the door to some remarkable tasting experiences.

What to Know about Fontal

Fontal cheese is quite similar to fontina, a slightly sweet Italian cheese. Fontina has a protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status and can only be produced from the milk of cows who graze on the alpine grasses of the Aosta Valley in northwestern Italy. Originally, the cheese was aged in local caves, which provided the ideal low temperatures and high humidity needed for this Italian variety. Fontal is the name given to cheeses produced in the same way, but which are made outside of the Aosta region.

How is fontal made?

Typically, fontal cheese is made from cow's milk, which is curdled with rennet, cooked at about 50° C, and pressed to eliminate whey. The cheese is then salted and brushed for a month, giving the rind its orange color. Fontal cheese is aged only about 90 days, preserving its creamy, smooth texture.

How is fontal different from fontina cheese?

Fontal cheese is very similar to fontina, and it can be substituted in any recipe that calls for the original Italian cheese. Fontal from Cello Cheese is produced with pasteurized cow's milk and is a bit milder than its Italian cousin.

What can you make with fontal cheese?

Fontal can be used in just about any recipe that calls for cheese. It's a mild, meltable table cheese with a slightly sweet finish. Its excellent melting properties allow it to be used easily in sauces, pasta, sandwiches, burgers, fondue, egg dishes, and pizza.

How to Pair Fontal

It's not hard to find friends for your fontal cheese. The mild flavor and smooth, creamy texture pair easily with almost anything you want to sip or savor.

Cooking with fontal couldn't be easier. It's great on grilled cheese sandwiches or layered in lasagna. Fontal is a natural for any alfredo dish and makes the most of mac and cheese. A spice-rubbed fontal is fabulous on any cheese board, and it pairs perfectly with everything from bacon and zucchini roll-ups to cured meats and dried fruits or figs.

For wine, vouvray, chardonnay, riesling, chianti, montepulciano, and cabernet sauvignon are all fontal favorites. If you're drinking beer, stouts, bocks, saisons, and lambics will go down great with fontal.