What is the ink made from?
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I recall with I lived in Italy, families would also use the rinds in the frittata. I was excellent.
I thought you're not supposed to consume the ink.
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@Steve
or consomme the link
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@Steve This may answer your question and mine, instead of someone giving a flippant answer: https://www.thespruceeats.com/can-you-eat-the-rind-1446495
I learned this trick years ago watching one of our National treasures, Jacques Pépin'. I love how he does not waste anything and has great suggestions how to use leftover bits.
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I sometimes grind or grate them. Then they're are easy to incorporate into a variety of dishes.
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I'm glad to see the NY Times has finally caught up with my grandmother. When I was young Parmesan was considered an expensive luxury item in our house. Wasting any of it was a sin. All rind was saved and added to soup. Grandmom never heard of umami, but she knew how to make food taste great with what was at hand. My refrigerator has a bag of Parmesan rinds right now and I use it all the time. Thanks Grandmom.
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Italians, especially in the North, have being doing this for centuries. Is essential to use real Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano crust with the writing which is done with no ink but by fire, no danger. In the article couple of times the name was misspelled as Parmegiano-Reggiano and not Parmigiano-Reggiano which is the correct way (it means the cheese is from Parma and from Reggio both in the region of Emilia-Romagna although the area in which the consortium, with hundreds of producers, extends to the province of Bologna, the capital of that region)
Parmigiano-Reggiano Consortium for decades put his many associates to strict controls that starts from the type of feed of the cows are fed to the milk quality and to the actual process (no preservatives, no additives).
Beware of Italian sounding Parmesan, Parmeggiano (with two N and an E in stead on I), or even the above mentioned Parmegiano without Reggiano. These are not the original and do not comply with the quality standards of the original. That is why the Consortium has a very aggressive team of lawyers connected with legal office around the world to defend the name and the quality of that great cheese.
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As a Italian from Veneto, I feel that Grana Padano is just as delicious; and its rind is indeed used by nonne (grandmothers) all over Northern Italy.
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Sitting in Russia I can only daydream (while my mouth run in water) about Parmesan or any other kind of cheese for that matter - all grace a Putin for his self imposed food embargo.
Never the less the article brings me back to the first cheese I ever ate as an adult. A German friend told my parents who were running a hotel in France NOT to toss the cheese rinds. Put the rinds in a hermetically closed jar and cover with rum. Let it sit some days for the rinds to dissolve and voilà! The most delicious cheese.
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This is a great Pro tip! Toss a small rind of Parm-Reg in your red sauce. You'll never make red sauce again and NOT use it.
Picked this up watching a cooking show years back.
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Unfortunately, our supermarket has realized that they can sell the rinds at a ridiculous price, and it is no longer possible to collect them from a wedge of Parmesan; they cut them off all their cut Parmesan before selling. I haven't seen a wedge of Parmesan with rind on it in a couple of years.
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@Notsolittle I would not buy it without the rind. How can you tell you are getting the real thing and not some knock-off? What a racket.
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Like the song says, "there's people out there turning music into gold", apparently they're doing the same with soup broth and parm rinds.
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Please begin to publish recipes with all kinds of beans and other Covid-19 pantry recipes without the paywall. Going to the supermarket is now my highest risk activity and it would be so helpful to have thoughtful and efficient recipes from your brilliant food staff. Going to the supermarket is now my highest risk activity and it would be so helpful to have thoughtful and efficient recipes from your brilliant Food staff. Then I can shop more intentionally. Right now I feel so overwhelmed, it is hard to plan meals and coordinate them with my shopping for the long term. Thanks so much.
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I don’t know why but this totally weirds me out. What if the rind has white dots on it?
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Doesn’t it have wax on it? I’d always used it until someone told me it could be waxed.
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@Gianna Not to worry. I have been cooking with and eating the rinds for over 60 years. If it was going to kill me, I would have been gone a long time ago.
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Been adding it to my pasta sauce for years - it adds great flavor. Romano rinds a good too!
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My freezer competes with my dog for Parmegiano-Reggiano rinds. The freezer is losing.
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@Golem18 Agree. My dog is going to be really sad if I start using the rinds for cooking, but it seems I must.
@Golem18
pro tip:
put your dog in the freezer for extra flavor
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I’ve added parmesan rinds to food before but this article is a revelation. I am allergic to celery and therefore can’t eat most soups or have to make my own stock. This looks so much easier.
As soon as I get out of my self quarantine, my husband is presently in a high risk group, I am running to my favorite Italian grocery store and making these recipes. Maybe they deliver.
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So funny! I just made parmesan broth two days ago! Delicious! Thank you for posting.
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A parmesan rind is the best to add depth and nuttiness to any broth or soup. It can make a bland soup broth robust and flavorful. The disappointing part is I can never just purchase a rind. You would think any cheesemonger would wrap these rinds up and have them readily available. No luck. I guess I have to buy a good wedge of parmesan to get that rind. Oh well.
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Last night I tossed a piece into my red sauce and once it softened I minced it and threw it back into the pot
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Why “bombastic” to describe this? What am I missing?
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call me crazy, but in addition to using them in stocks and soups, i throw a couple of rinds in the microwave (okay, okay...so what?) until the tops get all bubbly and i'll put on a nice piece of prosciutto and a twist of pepper on top and just chomp away....i call it italian american junk food! my mother is probably rolling in her grave that i just wrote this!
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I have the best use for it, one that was taught to me by mother, she learnt it from hers. Stick it on a fork and roast it on the stove flame, much as a marshmellow on your campfire. You will not be disappointed.
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I thought the outer rind was wax. Incorrect?
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Incorrect. Parmesan is all cheese, though plenty of other varieties of cheese definitely have that waxy coating.
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One reader says the rind is "completely edible?"
Rinds always appear to me to have some type of waxy composition, so I cut them off.
Please clarify. Are Parmesan rinds different? Or is the waxy appearance misleading?
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@AJ If you get the real stuff... it's all cheese. The outer edge gets hard from aging. The Parmigiano Reggiano logo gets burned onto the rind. If they've been hanging around for a while, we sometimes give them a scrape with a knife ... but they are indeed edible.
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Very tasty stuffed under the skin of a soon to be roasted chicken too.
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Can you do it with other hard cheese rinds such as manchego?
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@Michelle Manchego has a waxy substance on its exterior. The 6 month is red and the 9 month is grayish.
@Rob D Yes, I know. That's why I'm asking this question :)
On a similar note, I see many people throw away salmon skin, but when fried, it is the bacon of the sea.
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@Joe B
not without nitrates it isn't
i just eat them. got to feed the chef.
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Sorry, Wisconsin....your "parmesan" just doesn't measure up.
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I've tossed the rind into a simmering pot of homemade spaghetti sauce. Not to be discarded! Thanks for the article.
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And to think all this time I have been using them as dog treats!
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@The Assistant Gardener Lucky dog!
@The Assistant Gardener What's your point? The dog rules.
I throw parmesan rind in all sorts of things, esp. vegetable soup and marinara. I stupidly bought some rinds at Whole Foods for $8.99/lb because I was desperate. The other day I got some more at my local Shop Rite for $5.99/lb. And, of course I save it when I buy a block of parmesan for grating...
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I remember when the rinds were given away on Federal Hill in Providence. Now they are sold at a lot of places for a ridiculous price. Be sure to save and freeze your own.
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I've been saving mine ever since I saw my relatives in Sicily doing it! They don't waste anything there.
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This is a bit over the top.
Save em in a freezer bag and drop a piece into the tomato sauce you can with some wine. let it simmer until the alcohol no longer smells strong and remove it. Throw it away.
You get the flavor of adding grated cheese without the sticky ooky mess of it. The cheese side will melt so depending on how close to the rind you cut...
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I love eating the rinds. I first discovered them in Florence back in the 1970s and have been a fan of gnawing on them ever since.
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@Lorenzo
Ditto. They’re my favorite snack.
Strangely, nobody has mentioned the best dish made with Parmesan rinds - the Italian ribollita. It’s a vegetable soup/stew made with bread and Parmesan. There are many different versions, all of them delicious.
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The leftover chicken carcass (even if it’s a store rotisserie) and some Parmesan rinds can transform into one of the most beautiful of soups, along with bits of fresh, cooked, or frozen vegetables, and that scrap of dried pasta in the bottle of the bag (or a fistful if rice).
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When exactly did the term "umami" become so ubiquitous in the English lexicon when describing taste? Originally referring strictly to glutamates - yes, the often maligned MSG - it is puzzling how popular this term has become to describe what we used to simply call "savory".
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@DNcgo I think there's a difference between savory and umami. Savory is usually comparative to sweet. Umami, as I understand it, refers to the unique effect some ingredients have on how other ingredients taste. While anchovies and mushrooms are "savory" they also have an umami affect - bringing out flavor - when added to other foods.
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Wonderful article that shows how easy it is to boost flavor in a dish! I save both parm and romano rinds in the freezer. I frequently make hearty chicken or turkey soups; adding a few rind chunks both enhances flavor, and thickens the broth a bit.
If I'm out of rinds, my local market has a well stocked cheese counter with very knowledgeable cheese personnel. They usually have parm rinds for sale near the parm cheese chunks. If not, all I have to do is ask, and they retrieve a container for me from their walk in freezer. So don't forget to ask your cheese purveyor for parm rinds, even if you don't see them out.
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It's also nice to toss small chunks of it into risotto. It gives a nice chewy surprise in such a dish. You can also try sticking it on the end of a wooden skewer and toast it like a marshmallow over an open gas flame - a real treat!
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Great way to add depth of flavor and zing to meatless dishes!
Worth it anyway to buy a wedge of Parmesan or other grating cheese and grate it fresh.
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Cheese rind brodo rocks. I never waste a cheese rind. Just be sure always to make the brodo in a nonstick pan, because it becomes one of Mother Nature’s finest glues.
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I do this with pecorino romano rinds.
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A wonderful advice, even for me who does not care for the niceties and nuances of umami ウマミ or umai ウマイ. It should work with the crust of other hard and soft cheeses too.
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@Tuvw Xyz
You may not consciously care, but I daresay you might notice when that "savoriness" is missing. Food tastes somehow flatter, and no amount of salt or other seasoning improves it.
I'm curious as to which soft cheese rinds you recommend. I hesitate to use them for broth, as so many have a coating of mold or ash that I fear might not translate well into a desired flavor. When I do use a soft cheese, I wrap it in cheesecloth to prevent it from simply melting onto the bottom of the pot before it gives up its flavor. (I do that with the softer outsides of pecorino.)
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@Suzanne F - I use brie (both rinds and the cheese body) in soups when I want a creamy cheese broth, say for a cheesy chicken soup, a potato soup, or a chicken corn chowder soup. I usually also add some easily melted cheese to the broth in these instances, say a shredded Monterey Jack or Mozzarella.
In my cooking experience, anyway, the brie and parm/romano rinds behave entirely different when added to broths and soups. The brie rinds, for me, add a melted cheese texture and brie flavor without the 'special' flavors added by the hard parm/romano rinds.
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@ Suzanne F Upper Upper Manhattan
I prefer to eat soft cheeses, rather than manipulate their crust. The favorites are Saint-André and Brillat-Savarin, followed by camembert, brie, and Swiss Appenzeller, in the preceding order.
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Calandras, an old fashioned cheese and fresh egg and groceries emporium on Arthur Ave. in the Bronx, sells all types of imported, italian cheeses and italian delicacies and gives the rinds for free. My mom has been putting the rind for flavor in soups and stews forever. It gives a bit of Umami to everything you would think like Lentil Soup and Beef Stew. Any type of Pot Roast or long simmering dish. Yumster.
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@This just in
Yumster! My new favorite word!
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@This just in it's only a matter of time before those rinds are marketed on the shelves. You know, like chicken wings.
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I have been doing this for years after reading about it in a recipe somewhere and it is such a great flavor booster. I just keep my old rinds in a bag in the freezer, and grab one when making a soup/stew/sauce.
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@ FoodLover Boston, MA
Thank you for sharing your experience. As an incorrigible cheese lover, I shall replicate it.
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An old trick of adding parmesan rinds to tomato sauce I learned iirc from Marcella Hazan.
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The outer rind of real Reggiano is indeed just hardened cheese, cured with periodic oil rubs during its 15-18 months of aging. I was a 5th generation cheesemonger who got in the habit of lightly scraping and removing the top millimeter of rind for sanitary reasons. Probably overkill though.
In 50 years of tasting, nothing else *even approximates* the exquisitely complex flavor and aroma of the Real McCoy. Kudos for sharing the value of this overlooked ingredient!
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@WNY Billie Thanks for the clarification. I always assumed it was wax on the rind, and eating that didn't appeal.
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@WNY Billie
Thank you for sharing this valuable information inexplicably missing from the article. I too was always under the impression cheese rinds were made of some sort of wax and wondered how they wouldn’t melt in hot liquid. Was about to post the question myself and ask why the author would advocate adding something to food without explaining its ingredients.
It’s wrong to assume every reader knows these things. I myself have been an adventurous eater, cook, and reader of cookbooks across a wide spectrum of cuisines for decades but never once came across the ingredient of cheese rinds or a use for them. Granted, in-depth Italian cooking hasn’t been a personal focus but that’s exactly why an author should include this kind of information.
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It's worth pointing out that the parmesan rind is completely edible. It's way too hard to eat fresh, but after simmering in a soup or pot of beans it gets down to a very chewable texture.
After it has softened thru cooking I cut them into smaller strips and add them back to a stew or pot of beans, eat it separately for a soup.
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@Mike T. You yourself might find eating them fresh to be “way too hard,” but tastes (literal and figurative) differ. I personally find the experience of gnawing/gnashing on a “raw” P.R. rind wedge peculiarly satisfying in terms of texture as well as taste. Like a dog with a new bone, or a juicy role into which an ambitious actor can sink their metaphorical teeth, P.R. rinds, chomp by satisfying chomp, are a snack treat.
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Thank you for this article.
My wife and I have been saving Parmesan rinds for a long time for the reasons stated and now we can justifiably explain why to our cooking friends.
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