Jun 23 2026
Anyone who loves French cheese enjoys the subtlety in flavour and texture which differentiates certain cheeses and allows our favourite pairings to work. But sometimes we just like to melt cheese and enjoy its rudimentary gooey, creaminess. A steaming, hot pool of bubbling cheese can bring great comfort, and there is nothing wrong with that, but some French cheeses melt better than others, while the flavour is sometimes lost when melting a cheese, so it is not something we would ordinarily recommend. Here we have explained the science behind why and how French cheeses melt, and have highlighted the best French cheeses to enjoy in this most indulgent of formats.
In its most basic form, cheese is a blend of dairy fat and water held together by proteins. The dairy fat will remain solid in cooler temperatures, but the more you raise the temperature, the more the casein bonds in the proteins start to sag and break. You might notice some cheeses start to sweat when stored at room temperature. This is the start of that process and of course, the texture of cheese softens when out of the fridge, with some, such as Brie de Meaux, softening to an almost liquid state after 30 minutes at room temperature.
When cheese is deliberately heated up, amazing things can happen. Raclette, for example, breaks down easily into a gorgeous, consistently creamy texture, but others might go tough, stringy and oily when heated up. If a cheese has a higher fat content, it will generally melt better because this fat turns to water when heated. Brie is a good example of this. However, acidity is a factor also. Cheese with a high acid content has caseins that are more strongly bonded together, so there is less room for fat and water. The result of this is that the cheese doesn’t stretch and melt as easily, and hence becomes stringy.
In order to find a cheese with good melting properties you need to hit a sweet spot of:
Acid is added to milk when bacteria combines with the milk and creates lactic acid. High acid content cheese will be too hard to melt properly and low acid content cheese will split when melted, so the results won’t be creamy and smooth. Age is also an important factor because cheese dries as it ages. A more mature cheese will also have looser protein structures, which affects how it melts because it can’t bind the fat and water in the same way. Younger cheeses generally melt better because they have more moisture and their protein structure is tighter and more reliable. You may also get oily melted cheese because the protein groups shrink too much, this means they can’t contain the fat and so it separates and leaves cheese floating in a pool of grease when melted. You often find this with blue cheeses, which melt to the extent they are good for spreading like butter, but when heated too much they tend to separate and go oily.
A good French melting cheese will have high moisture and fat content and young protein structures. These cheeses will melt smoothly and consistently, and will stay that way however long they are heated for, ie. when having a fondue and maintaining a heat underneath the pot. Such cheeses include:
Brie, Camembert, Emmental, Raclette, Comte, Beaufort, Abondance
If you look for the best French cheeses that start to change structure at room temperature, either they literally start to sag or they just become easier to slice, this generally means they will have good melting properties.
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