7 Greatest Fontina Cheese Alternatives

Can fontina cheese alternatives be as nice as the real thing?

Most of us, including me, would kill for a piece of fontina cheese. If you like roasted red pepper sandwiches and grilled chicken, you’ll realize how valuable this cheese is since it’s a vital element.

Your arguments for exchanging one cheese for another, on the other hand, are sound.

This cheese is notoriously difficult to get outside of northern Italy. Since there are so many people looking for it, you may only be able to find it once in a blue moon at a local grocery store.

If you can’t get fontina when you need it, excellent substitutes include gouda, gruyere, taleggio, Emmental, appenzeller, bel paese, provolone, and Edam cheese.

Some are readily accessible, taste identical, and serve the EXACT same function.

What Is Fontina Cheese?

Fontina is a popular semi-hard cheese with a mild buttery, nutty taste.

This cheese originated in Valle dAosta, Italy.

Fontina has a solid, somewhat springy structure with a pale gold inside and a reddish-brown peel.

This creamy cheese melts smoothly and is ideal for soups, chowders, pasta, or sauces. They’re also delicious in toasted sandwiches, pizzas, and frittatas.

Apart from that, the silky texture and acidic taste create a delicious topping for any gratin.

On the other hand, if you haven’t already, the fontina cheese substitutes on our list are worth investigating since they will make you miss the fontina taste less.

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Best Fontina Cheese Substitutes

The following are some fontina cheese substitutes you should absolutely try:

1. Taleggio Cheese

Although fontina has a little coarser texture and tiny eyes throughout the cheese, Taleggio has a comparable flavor and meltability.

Taleggio is a semi-soft, washed-rind cheese manufactured from cow’s milk that is 100% Italian.

It has a mild flavor that is silky and creamy. Although though it is not as creamy as fontina, the melting capability is amazing.

But, because of its moist-to-oozy texture, it melts nicely in the tongue, making it excellent for crusty toast.

Within a second, you can taste the buttery delightful fruity, tangy flavor of this cheese.

The strong scent makes it especially appealing for flavoring gnocchi or crepes.

It pairs well with pumpkin jam, onion jam, fig compote, and walnut compote.

Do you want to go all-out Italian?

Try it with salads, a hot dish of polenta, bruschetta, or risotto for my Italian friends. Alternatively, soave, chianti riserva, and barolo.

2. Gruyere Cheese

Gruyre is a kind of Swiss cheese. It is hard, unlike fortina, but has a pale yellow tint and a nourishingly creamy, somewhat nutty flavor.

Gruyre features little holes as well, although they are smaller and fewer than in Fortina.

Most significantly, only a few types of cheese are blessed with the ability to become gooey when baked, which is why fortina is such a hot cake.

But guess what? Gruyre is one of the selected. These are excellent melting cheeses, making them great for fondues.

You may also use them in baked goods, gratings, casseroles, soups, and other recipes.

Some people love to grate it over spaghetti and salads.

The good news is that gruyre is high in protein, calcium, and phosphorus.

Regrettably, it contains a lot of saturated fat.

As a consequence, eating too much of it raises bad cholesterol, which is associated to an increased risk of heart disease.

3. Emmental Cheese

It’s also worth noting that Emmental cheese is an excellent fontina replacement.

Moreover, it is a semi-hard cheese created from cow’s milk, similar to fontina, and adorned with characteristic holes all over.

The packaging is consistent: a hard, thin rind covered with paper labeling with the producer’s name.

Fontina and Emmental have a similar flavor profile, with a buttery and nutty flavor and a somewhat fruity, acidic undertone.

The flavor evolves from moderate to intense as wine matures.

Moreover, Emmental is a great melting cheese for fondue, as well as cut in sandwiches, burgers, and baked meals.

It’s often grated over soups, such as French onion soup, vegetables, or salads.

Emmental is not only delicious in your dishes, but it is also healthful.

Related: Tarragon Vinegar Substitutes

4. Appenzeller Cheese

As with Gruyre and Emmental,

Appenzeller is a fontina cheese substitute from Switzerland.

Appenzeller is undoubtedly Switzerland’s tastiest hard cheese, but the raw, powerful unpasteurized cow milk that gets into it makes it delicious.

Appenzeller tastes more like fontina and becomes spicier with age.

The medium-sized slices of this cheese look to be light to straw yellow with dotted holes.

Since it melts nicely, it is well-known for three-cheese fondue, paste snacks, sandwiches, and macaroni.

5. Bel Paese Cheese

It’s impossible to discuss Italian cheeses without mentioning Bel Paese. It is one of the most popular Italian cheeses, but it is now being made in the United States and Brazil.

Bel paese is a semi-soft cheers with a creamy, buttery flavor that is widely accessible. And soft enough to melt in sauces, pizzas, and baked goods, yet solid enough to slice.

You may also get them in cheese stores or any well-stocked grocery store.

6. Provolone Cheese

Provolone cheese is another option you might try.

This cows-milk cheese from southern Italy has a moderate flavor similar to fontina, but milder than young fontina, with a pronounced tang aftertaste.

Since it is a good melting cheese, you may use it in casseroles, sandwiches, and grated into pizza, salads, or pasta.

Do you want to try some Italian dishes?

Go ahead and do it! That would be fantastic as a topping for baked ziti.

When ingested in moderation, it provides several health advantages such as improved vision, stronger bones, softer skin, and more.

However, they also have a high salt content and an excessive level of saturated fat. And, as you may be aware, it may result in high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke.

We’ve also discussed provolone alternatives, so please check them out.

7. Edam Cheese

Finally, the Edam, a semi-hard cheese from the Netherlands prepared with skimmed milk and marketed in a flat-ended sphere with a red paraffin wax rind.

The inside is light yellow with no perforations, similar to fontina.

Edam cheese has a moderate salty and nutty taste with nearly little scent when compared to other cheeses.

In addition, as it matures, the taste grows more intense and the texture becomes harder.

This cheese is great for breakfast in paste and crepes, soups, sauces, and more.

Conclusion

Finally, you may always use any of these fontina cheese replacements. These are adaptable cheeses that act similarly to fontina.

Yet we’re both familiar with the real deal: experimenting. Be careful to test a few different options before deciding on one.

Science, intuition, and chance all play a role in cooking.

To be honest, no cheese can completely replace fontina. Some may, however, attempt a specific recipe.

So don’t be frightened to experiment. Who knows, you could be shocked by the outcome!

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