TikTok Taught Me: A Simple Trick for Storing Cheese to Extend Its Life

If you love cheese as much as we do, then you know the terrible feeling of throwing away a block of your favorite cheese because it’s covered in disgusting, moldy spots or crusty, dry patches. And, let’s be honest, a quality block of cheese isn’t cheap.

Plus, if you keep a variety of cheeses in your fridge, we’re sure you’d like to finish them all without feeling like you’re wasting precious cheese (and money).

A lot of us are probably used to chucking our open cheese in a plastic bag or wrapping it in parchment to store it. Some of you cheese connoisseurs may even have special cheese paper for your favorite blocks.

While those methods will do the trick, TikTok taught us an even simpler way to store cheese—that doesn’t involve anything else in your kitchen. According to TikTok user @juliannetaylorstyle, the best way to store hard cheese is by using the packaging it comes in.

It sounds obvious enough, the cheese is sold in those packages for a reason. So, instead of coming home and ripping open the package like you normally would, you’ll want to cut the package in a way that creates a barrier for the cheese.

To create this cheese “hat,” you’ll start a few inches from the top of the packaging. Cut all the way around the cheese—enough so that the top of the package can cover the rest of the block of cheese. Slide the top piece of packaging over the rest of the package (you may need to cut some cheese off to make it fit), and there you have it. 

Now your cheese will stay fresh for much longer and you won’t have to worry about hacking off moldy or dry pieces every time you open the bag.

Note, this hack may only work with cheese you buy from the dairy section in the grocery store, not the fresh cheese you buy at the deli counter—the packaging is a little different for deli cheese. If your cheese already comes wrapped in parchment or cheese paper, continue to store it in that.

Does this trick actually work? Yes, we tried it and compared it to the fan-favorite plastic bag method. The cheese in the packaging stayed moist and fresh while the cheese in the plastic bag began to suffocate and dry out.

Why does it work? Because cheese needs to breathe. When you wrap your cheese in plastic wrap or seal it off with a plastic bag, you’re cutting off its ability to get the temperatures and humidity that it likes. The packaging that most cheese comes in is more breathable than your at-home plastics—plus, you’re only loosely covering it, so it can still keep its moisture without drying out.

Besides the fact that it works beautifully, the best part about this hack is that it’s so easy and doesn’t require any more steps than you’d normally take to store your cheese. So, give it a try and thank us later when you’re still enjoying your fresh cheese for weeks on end.