[dbfclark]

Another completely viable solution (other than adding extra starch) I’ve found is to sprinkle a bit of sodium citrate (the sodium salt of citric acid, a common food additive and cheap on Amazon) over the cheese before adding to the pan. This improves the melting qualities of the cheese and avoids the starch issue altogether. You’re basically using pecorino velveeta.

[righthand]

You also can do this with basic natural and readily available ingredients:

1t-1T (teaspoon, Tablespoon) lemon/citrus juice and a literal two-finger tiny pinch of baking soda, without buying specialized chemical compound ingredients off of Amazon that may be lying about their contents.

Sodium citrate is already in citrus and the baking soda kills the acidity that may make the taste more harsh (another great trick is adding a pinch of baking soda to homemade tomato soup to kill the tomato acidity and blend it better with added milk/cream).

1T of white wine can do wonders for cheese sauce as well.

[Aloisius]

> Sodium citrate is already in citrus

Citric acid is in the citrus. You're making sodium citrate when you add baking soda.

I keep citric acid around for cooking and adjust water pH for plants since SF water is so alkaline, so I just make it from that.

For x grams of sodium citrate desired, mix 0.744x grams citric acid and 0.976x grams sodium bicarbonate in enough water to dissolve. Stir until reaction stops. Boil off water if desired.

You need 2-3g of sodium citrate for every 100g of cheese.

[vicioms]

Author of the paper here! We actually tried the sodium citrate trick and it totally works. We did not explore the phase diagram in that case as thoroughly but we might see whether to put it in the published version in the supplementary materials. Thanks everyone for the great welcoming!

[righthand]

The baking soda trick works wonders with canned tomatoes that may have a tin-like taste too.

[calf]

That's nice, I remember reading about sodium citrate and maybe having to bake baking soda in the oven or something like that. Getting it from lemon juice would be a lot easier.

[wrboyce]

What is 1T? Given the context I am assuming tablespoon, but that’s not an abbreviation I’ve ever encountered before (tbsp being the only abbreviation I have seen).

[jmvoodoo]

When I read the paper I immediately wondered if this would work. Good to see that someone has tried it and indeed it does!