Santa Cruz (Mennonite colonies) · Bolivia
Queso Menonita.
The quiet melting cheese of Bolivia's Mennonite colonies: mild, buttery, supple — the block behind a hot, gooey cuñapé. Clean and milky with a gentle salt and a buttery give; a smooth, sliceable body that melts long and even, made to disappear into cooking rather than to shout on a board.
The story
How it's made.
Why it tastes that way.
Across the dry lowlands of Santa Cruz, dozens of Mennonite colonies — men and women of the field, in the words of one producer — run dairy herds and make cheese, and their pale, supple table cheese has become a Bolivian kitchen staple.
It's the classic melting cheese for cuñapé, the chewy cassava-and-cheese roll of the eastern lowlands, and for the many baked and fried breads and snacks that want a mild, generous melt. It belongs to the same wider family as Mexico's Mennonite cheese — queso Chihuahua — carried and adapted by the same austere farming tradition; the Bolivian version is its own everyday article, born of Santa Cruz milk and colony dairies.
Production · spec
- Milk
- Cow · pasteurised
- Family
- Semi-hard
- Rind
- wax
- Age
- 1–3 mo
In the pan
What it does
when the pan gets hot.
Queso Menonita is a cooking cheese — made for heat, not the board. Here's how it behaves when it hits the pan.
Bolivia's Queso Menonita is made on the ultra-conservative Mennonite colonies around Santa Cruz — communities that speak Plautdietsch and keep no electricity or cars — and carried into the city's markets as prized 'homemade-quality' cheese.
Nutrition · as an ingredient
What it brings
to the dish.
Per 100 g of cheese, uncooked. A cooking cheese is an ingredient — what you actually eat depends on the recipe, so every Kitchen recipe carries its own per-serving numbers.
819 mg sodium per 100 g — the cheese seasons the dish. Taste after it goes in; salt last, if at all.
Daily values use the FDA 2020 reference of 2,000 kcal. Figures are for the cheese uncooked; a finished dish depends on its recipe.
From the Kitchen · Caseo team
What to cook with Queso Menonita.
1 recipe from our editorial team — each links into the Kitchen, scaled to your table.
Where to find it
Cheese counters.
Counter listings for Queso Menonita are being verified. Check back soon.
Verified counter listings coming soon. Our team updates listings monthly.
Substitutes
No Queso Menonita at the counter?
These will play a similar role on the board and in the pan.
Take it with you
Want to remember this one?.
Log it, pair it, and keep your own tasting notes — Caseo is free.
