Kasseri

Kasseri is the mildest of the sheep-milk cheeses in regular Greek use. It is a pasta filata cheese, meaning the curd is heated and stretched before shaping, the same method behind mozzarella and provolone, and it is made from sheep's milk with a proportion of goat's milk allowed. It carries Protected Designation of Origin status and is associated with Thessaly, Macedonia, Lesvos and Xanthi.

That stretched curd is what lets it melt smoothly instead of separating into oil and strings, so it is the cheese a Greek kitchen reaches for when something has to melt: over a baked pasta, inside a toasted sandwich, in a cheese pie alongside feta, or cut thick and fried as saganaki, where it browns quickly and stays soft rather than turning rubbery.

Its flavour is buttery and only lightly salty, which makes it the easiest Greek cheese to give to someone who finds feta and kefalotyri too sharp. A young provolone or a firm, low-moisture mozzarella stands in well enough for melting. Mature cheddar does not, since it splits into fat and solids under sustained heat in a way kasseri does not.