this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
411 points (93.6% liked)
2 North American 4 You
155 readers
280 users here now
founded 2 weeks ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Look, nobody is eating cubes of American cheese and pretending it's gouda. It's for cheeseburgers and grilled cheese sandwiches. It's uniquely suited for it. It melts better. The flavor is strong and unsubtle, which matches well with a well-seasoned burger or stands on its own in a grilled cheese.
Just because you don't understand a food doesn't mean it's bad.
There is zero issue with making a grilled cheese with something like cheddar or even mozarella. The melting thing is in small part people cooking too hot, but mostly it is pure marketing hype - american cheese only makes sauces easier.
Make a cheese burger or grilled cheese sandwich with American plastic and one with proper Dutch cheese and compare. No way in hell the American cheese (like in the picture) wins.
Just because you never had proper cheese means you don't know what you're talking about.
As much as I appreciate good cheeses, American Singles are suitable for cheeseburger and grilled cheese-applications on account of them containing sodium citrate, which gives them good melting properties.
Well-tasting cheeses without sodium citrate tend to break when melted, which is not particularly desirable.
You could of course make your own melt-appropriate cheese by mixing in sodium citrate with a shredded well-tasting cheese and melting the mixture.
All the young Dutch cheeses, as well as white French cheeses (or from other EU countries) melt extremily well. Just the heavily riped yellow cheeses melt less well. If it's young and doesn't melt, it's probably not real cheese.
I've never seen melted cheese break. How does that even work, it's melted so in a liquid form. Even when cooled down it should be flexible and stretchy. Even when it's overly riped cheese which eventually melted (which it should, with a lot of patience) and cooled down should be more rubber-like than break.
When you think those American cheeses are perfect for their melting properties, you clearly dont have proper cheese alternatives as all young cheeses should melt flawlessly.
But the chance you don't have good alternatives is highly likely. I've traveled the world a lot and most Dutch cheeses I ate abroad were terrible. Even the craft cheeses were much worse than the plain mediocre quality supermarket factory cheeses here in NL. Even when I went to the UK, while the British themselves can make some very nice cheeses. But the Dutch cheeses they had were basically plastic, and indeed with barely any melting properties.
You're making extremely unwarranted assumptions about what kind of culinary access I have. I encourage you to consider how you express yourself.
Do you seriously think the only cheese that exists in the entirety of the US is kraft singles?
I'm sure your cheese is delicious but I'm also positive I've had some cheese that's much better, and I got it in America. It's a big country.
I've had many different cheeses on my burgers. I'm sure I've even had a gouda burger. They can be fine if you're going for like a specialty burger with other non-standard toppings, but a straight-up cheeseburger? That's not what proper Dutch cheese is made for, so why would you use it like that?
Different ingredients are better in different contexts.
Gouda in the Netherlands is not the same as gouda from anywhere else
I don't get the downvotes. I've been to Netherlands and it's true.
Yeah it's not an opinion it's a fact. It's with a lot of food, that it's best in a certain country because of the climate. I've been all over the world and tasted a lot of Dutch cheeses produced overseas but they all taste different.
Same with Heineken, in the Netherlands it tastes like piss but Heineken procured in other countries tastes like piss with plastic somehow. And it changes with every factory. Guinness also tastes best in Ireland. Red wines in the Netherlands taste worse than in France etc because of the climate. Best drink white when you're here.
Next to that the production process isn't the same everywhere due to regulations which also has an effect on the taste of Gouda cheese. And cheese is made with mold which is very sensitive to climate. Different cows mean different milk taste. You can clone the strain and process but it's never the same.
Cheese burger with Raclette cheese :p
are we still talking about Kraft Singles, here? because those have zero flavour
maybe I need to get a refresher on the differences between american cheese in Canada and in the US
If you think Kraft Singles have no flavor, then we must not be talking about the same thing. There's much better American cheese than Kraft Singles, but I can't imagine describing them as bland.