Homemade Quark Recipe Using a Sous Vide Method

Wanting an easy quark recipe? Take a look at this unusual way of making this staple ingredient used for German cheesecakes and so much more. My method involves using a Greek yogurt maker, but using the oven or even a slow cooker (if it goes low enough) work as well.

Two of our fans, Ralph Spitz and Shawn Garbett sent in their methods, both similar but with different temperatures and times, using a sous vide cooking appliance. Shawn said he wanted to try making my recipe for homemade quark using it. Ralph mentioned it was an even better alternative to using an oven as a yogurt maker.

I thought it was pretty cool that Ralph and Shawn both came up with the idea of using a sous vide cooker to make quark! These appliances are especially popular for cooking steaks to perfection, but who knew they could be so useful for making homemade cheese, too? I love discovering new ways to use familiar kitchen gadgets!

1. Ralph's Quark Recipe using a Sous Vide

➤ by Ralph Spitz

Using a Sous Vide:

• I place the milk, in this case, the buttermilk in a 1 quart hinge-top glass jar.
• Place it in a large stock pot, filling it with warm water to just below the top of the jar, where the lid seals. 
• I set the sous vide temperature to 115°F, and the time to 12 hours.

It stays at exactly the correct temperature, and requires no monitoring. 

After the time is up, drain as Oma does here or as mentioned below.

2. Shawn's Quark Recipe using a Sous Vide

➤ by Shawn Garbett

I was reading a baking recipe when I came across a reference to quark cheese. I'd never heard of quark cheese and being a cheese lover I needed to try this with all due haste.

Being that none is available nearby and being an amateur cheesemaker myself I figured I'd just make some. I began a search of the internet for recipes.

Most I found had some very dodgy practices that is until I ran across Oma's recipe.

I realized that her procedure is one of the easiest most foolproof procedures in making cheese that I've ever seen.

There are a few additional details I'd like to share to ensure success, but otherwise follow her recipe and one will have quark in no time.

The first is the choice of buttermilk. Make sure it has active culture. Some buttermilks sold have been pasteurized killing the active culture.

By using active cultured buttermilk, one skips right over a tricky step in cheesemaking: getting very fresh milk with little processing cultured.

This is a natural acid set cheese. Do not use vinegar or lemon juice to rush the process--it needs the natural culture to develop the flavor.

The mesophilic culture in buttermilk will continue to acidify if given the right conditions. Optimal is 92F (33C) for 24 hours in Oma's recipe.

I used a sous vide cooker to do achieve this and just opened the buttermilk carton and placed right in the water and set my sous vide to 94F since it was quite cool in my house and the top of the carton was exposed.

The popular multi-function "one pot" that has settable temperature would also work quite well. Yogurt cookers are designed for a thermophilic culture which likes a hotter temperature (110 to 115F).

Mesophilic will still grow but slower so if one uses a yogurt makers one should wait a bit longer, say 30 hours. If neither of these are available, a lukewarm water bath from the tap will do or a counter top in the summer when the house is warm.

Just let it go a bit longer if it gets off optimal temperature.

The second tip for success is a good cheese cloth. This is not what is sold as "cheese cloth" in the grocery store. A good cheese cloth is a 100% cotton unbleached muslin cloth.

To keep it a cheese cloth it is never to be washed or exposed to detergents or soap. To clean simple wash off any curd matter still left and wash in washer with bleach or borax.

The acidity is very important to good cheese making and cloth can retain residual soap which will work against the acidity and can spoil the process.

With good temperature control and a soap free cheese cloth this is an incredibly easy process. The rest is just letting it drip out remaining whey and oh is it delicious. Much more delicate flavor than a sour cream from the store.

Quark is simple and tasty.

Oma's Tips:

Don't have a Sous Vide?

No worries! You can still make delicious homemade quark without a sous vide cooker.

I have two other easy methods for making quark at home: one using a Greek yogurt maker and another using your oven. Both use cultured buttermilk, and neither requires much hands-on work.

Take a look at my homemade quark recipe for the complete step-by-step instructions.

For recipes on this website that traditionally use quark, I've sometimes substituted a mixture of ricotta and sour cream or used drained Greek yogurt instead.

But when I can make homemade quark, that's always a treat!

~ Oma Gerhild 

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Hi, I'm Oma Gerhild! As a food writer and cookbook author, I'm always looking to find ways to pass on my German heritage using local ingredients. Quick and easy. That's my goal. Wunderbar food. That's the result.