We're convinced that there isn't a single dish on the planet that wouldn't taste better with cheese added to it.
Not only does cheese taste absolutely incredible but it also offers some fantastic health benefits, especially when cheese is eaten in moderation.
When the time comes to grate some cheese for your lasagna or to make a fine cheese sauce, and your cheese grater is out of service or is hidden in one of your kitchen cabinets, you'll need some alternative methods.
Luckily for you, we'll make sure that you can get your cheese fix no matter what since we'll discuss a variety of methods to help you grate your cheese.
Cheese Grater Alternatives
We've scoured our own kitchens to come up with some of the most common and more creative methods of grating your cheese when a cheese grater isn't available. While some methods on how to grate cheese without a grater are more practical than others, each is an effective way to deliver the desired result.
Knives
We figured we'd start off with one of the go-to alternatives that everyone will have available to them and often turn to when in need of thinner cheese slices.
The best method is to position your cheese with its tall side down on a chopping board. Then, securely hold it tight while you thinly slice along the edge of the cheese block to produce easily dissolvable slices of cheese. These pieces can be cut down further for a more familiar size than the longer strips of cheese that you'll end up with.
Food Processors
Food processors offer a fantastically fast method of shredding cheese. The only downside to using a food processor is that you are left with more mess to clean up after you've processed the cheese.
To get the best results from a food processor, you'll want to make sure that you refrigerate the cheese beforehand to make it firmer, as this will stop it from crumbling apart. Also, before placing in the food processor, cut the cheese into small cubes and make sure not to overfill the container as the blades may become unbalanced or unable to cut through the load.
Your final step is to turn the food processor on and watch it shred your cheese. We recommend turning it on and off in short bursts to not over shred it and turn it into more of a paste. Ideally, you'll be able to attach a shredding disk on the inside of your processor, but if not, a regular chunkier chopping disk will do just fine.
Vegetable Peeler
A highly effective and often overlooked kitchen utensil is a vegetable peeler. This can produce incredibly thin slices of cheese with minimal effort. This method is one of the slower ones we've offered but it is incredibly simple to carry out, and the vast majority of people will own a vegetable peeler.
In order to get the best results, you'll want to place the cheese wide side down along a chopping board or other flat surface and securely hold it down with your non-cutting hand. All you need to do now is glide the peeler along the cheese.
You'll also find that cutting towards you is significantly easier than cutting away even though it may not feel as safe. Just always make sure to keep a reasonable distance between your fingers and the peeler.
Use the Cheese
A far more unconventional method and one that really only applies to naturally more crumbly cheeses such as parmesan, you can use friction to create strings, strands, or balls of cheese. All you just need to do here is cut the cheese block in half and rub the two sides against one another with relative force.
This does become more problematic as your cheese block shrinks. At this point, roll the cheese around in your hand to break it up.
Create Your Own Grater
For the more DIY inclined chefs among us, you can even make your own grater with a tin can. To do this, you'll need to cut off one end of the can, preferably the top. This will leave you with a more secure construction.
The new hole will act as the bottom of your grater and allow the cheese to fall out onto the plate or chopping board. All you need to do next is pierce a series of holes into the can, opening them up to leave a sharper surface facing outward (as a normal grater appears) or you can drill holes into the can, leaving a cleaner finish. Your end result will be something which resembles a more conventional cheese grater and is used in the same manner.
Wrapping Up
When you're unable to find your cheese grater, don't panic! That is because there is a whole bunch of ways that you can still get perfectly thin cheese with only a little extra effort.
We recommend to either use a knife or peeler to thinly slice cheese as it's incredibly simple and offers less room for mistakes. Food processors are great, but if you over process the cheese, you'll be left with more of a liquid product.
Hopefully, at this point, you already know exactly how to grate cheese without a grater!