Make Better Cheese Sauce With Sodium Citrate

Cheese, glorious cheese! The iconic dairy product is eaten around the world and comes in a range of different styles, from American Colby-Jack to English cheddar cheese to Italian mozzarella to French brie to Dutch gouda and everything in-between. It's safe to say that cheese tastes incredible in any form, whether it's shredded for tacos, sliced for sandwiches, arranged around a fancy charcuterie board, melted atop pizza, nachos, and pasta, or used as a delectable dip for chips, pretzels, crackers, veggies, and more.

Obviously, all of the aforementioned genres of cheese are great, but when it comes to an ooey gooey, creamy cheese sauce, it's easy to hear the choruses of culinary gods and goddesses as you indulge in every bite. And if you're ever in the mood for whipping up a batch of homemade cheese sauce, consider incorporating a specific type of salt into your recipe to achieve the ideal texture.

Sodium citrate gives cheese sauce a delectably melty consistency

So, you're dreaming about preparing a velvety cheese sauce to drizzle over meals or dunk other savory delights into (fondue, anyone?). To yield the silkiest consistency possible, you're going to need sodium citrate, a special type of salt coveted by many culinary professionals. According to Cheese Professor, sodium citrate acts as an emulsifier to help cheese melt evenly and to the eater's preferred viscosity — all while maintaining the cheese's flavor.

Wisconsin Cheese shares that cheese sauce, one of the ultimate comfort foods, can be made from a multitude of cheeses, such as baby swiss, havarti, butterkäse, or any variety that tickles your taste buds. At the end of the day, the best cheese sauce recipe is the one that calls for your favorite cheese.

Oh, and here's one of the quirkiest facts about sodium citrate. The chemical's molecular formula is Na3C6H5O7, according to the National Library of Medicine. And if you remove the subscript numbers that represent the elemental atoms present, it spells out the name of a famous dish that features copious amounts of cheese sauce: nacho.