Today was a day to experiment! Let me first say…if you like cheese, consider just cutting a chunk of cheddar or grab a mozzarella cheese stick. There are no carbs and they are easy to eat on the run.
Cheddar has no carbs:
Mozzarella also has no carbs:
If you’re looking for a crunchy cheese snack, I found these at Walmart…with 1gm or less of carbs! They don’t taste too bad if you like Parmesan cheese. Also quite carb free!
Then, I found a recipe to make a cottage cheese snack. It looked pretty easy and cottage cheese is also quite low in carbs…6gm for 1/2 cup. Here is the recipe:
I like cottage cheese better than Parmesan, so I thought I’d give it a try. Now came the experimenting!
My First Attempt:
In my first attempt I used my standard baking sheets with the silicone sheet on them. I scooped out a large spoon of cottage cheese (it called for 2 tablespoons) and even sprinkled a little grated cheddar on half of them.
I put them in the preheated 400 degreeF oven.
In 20 minutes they were flat, starting to burn around the edges and quite soggy in the middle. I could barely get them off the sheets…a real mess.
My Second Attempt:
Obviously, my silicone mats were not helpful. I got out my roll of parchment paper and cut two for my baking sheets.
This time I used less cottage cheese and turned the oven down to 350 degreesF. These were at least edible, but the oven was still too hot.
My Third Attempt:
This time I turned the oven down to 325 degreesF and timed them for about 30 minutes.
Then, I turned the oven off, opened the oven door and let them cool and dry out even more. They turned out much better!
So, I guess it is possible to make a cheese snack with cottage cheese, but frankly…it seemed like a lot of messy work. I might as well just eat 1/2 cup of cottage cheese for 6 gm of carbs!
My Fourth Attempt to Make a Snack:
While I was waiting for the last batch to cool, I tried something else. I pulled out 12 corn chips (one serving, 12 chips, had 19 gm of carbs).
I arranged the corn chips on a dinner plate and put a square of cheddar cheese on each one.
Then, 20 seconds in the microwave melted the cheese and I had a simple crunchy cheese snack. I think I’ve found a fairly low carb snack/lunch that was very easy to make!
Frankly, if I want a crunchy cheese snack, I’ll use corn chips and the microwave. If I want cottage cheese, I’ll eat it with a spoon! If I want Parmesan cheese…I can buy a bag of snacks from Walmart! So, that’s my experimenting for the day! Enjoy!
If you have comments or questions, please email me directly at maryjkisner@gmail.com.