Though are obviously also delicious, the oil in many of them beads out as its heated. This drives moisture out of the final product, which also renders it grainy and makes it way less appealing to eat, especially as it cools. Those properties don't make for a great melting cheese.
People immediately distrust American cheese (and let's be real, it is!), but the truth is, that processing is what allows it to stay so uniform, and to me, it will always be the cheese of choice on a casual no-frills burger, , or a . Plus, hey, it's delicious — it's tangy, salty, and sharp, which allows it to stand out in each bite no matter what you put it on. I feel like people knock it a little too much sometimes.
The key ingredient to American cheese But the additives can include extra liquid, such as milk, whey, and emulsifiers like sodium phosphate or sodium citrate, which you can actually buy . These key emulsifiers allow oil and water to bind together, which prevents the oil from separating out when the cheese is melted, and thus gives you that consistent end product, even when it's melted. You might also notice that different brands of American cheese taste different from each other.
That's because the base cheeses can vary. So if you find you consistently prefer the taste of one brand of American cheese over another, it could be that you just love the flavor of its base blend over another. And in terms of nomenclature, you've probably seen that labels on American cheese call it "pasteuri.
