100 Best Recipes Ever: Cheese

You can use store-bought pralines to make the crust for this fluffy cheesecake, but Big Sugar’s quick praline recipe is worth the extra effort, as is the buttery caramel sauce that gets pooled on top.

“My friend Natalie’s mother, who lives in Amsterdam, brings me aged Gouda each year,” chef Barbara Lynch says. “I wanted to serve it as a fondue instead of on its own as an hors d’oeuvre.” For those without an overseas cheese connection, Lynch suggests buying an eight-month-aged Gouda—“Nothing too smoky; just a beautiful, salty Gouda.”

Unlike the classic fragile soufflé, these individual ones from chef Jeremiah Tower are perfect for a neophyte. They’re designed to fall and then puff back to life with their second baking.

Aged Gouda Biscotti (Photo) These crunchy biscotti are surprisingly rich-tasting thanks to aged Gouda and chopped walnuts. Try other hard cheeses, too, like aged Prima Donna, a lighter Gouda-style cheese from the Netherlands.

Feta Salsa Verde “Basically, I’ll put feta salsa verde on anything,” says chef Suzanne Goin about her feta cheese-spiked version of the herb, caper and anchovy sauce.