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10 Famous Italian Cheeses to Know and Love
Italian food is comforting and attractively familiar, and it’s thanks to the country’s traditional ingredients. Amongst all the items in the Italian pantry, there’s no doubt cheese has a special place in our hearts. The ‘Big Boot’ has dozens of diverse types of cheese, and they all have different uses!
If you’re a home chef looking to level up your cooking, you must start with quality food, which means sourcing authentic Italian products. At Casinetto, you’ll find the best Italian and European products delivered straight to the UAE. Traditional ingredients, authentic flavours, always.
Here are 10 famous Italian cheeses to know and love! Have you tried them all?
1. Parmigiano / Grana Padano
The most famous Italian cheese without a doubt is Parmigiano Reggiano. This hard cheese from Emilia Romagna or Lombardia, is made with unpasteurised cow’s milk and aged for a minimum of 12 months! Make sure you source yours from a reputable producer, like Gennari.
Grate Parmigiano cheese over a steamy bowl of pasta or add it to creamy sauces for a uniquely Italian taste. For a more affordable cheese or similar quality, explore the beautiful Grana Padano or Parmesan Hard cheese.
2. Burrata
Burrata is a unique Italian cheese made with cow’s milk, and it’s typical in Puglia, Southern Italy.
Producers use rennet to curdle the milk and use the fresh cheese to form pouches. They then fill these round bags with “stracciatella” (mozzarella shred and fresh cream) and seal them, making burrata a gooey delight! Burrata is best enjoyed over a tossed salad, but it makes a lovely pizza topping, and it can also be part of modern preparations — its milky flavour is deliciously compatible with truffles! Amongst the best producers specialising in burrata, you’ll find Palazzo, which is exclusively found in Casinetto’s catalogue.
3. Mozzarella / Buffalo mozzarella
Mozzarella is another famous Italian cheese, and it’s also popular in Central and Southern Italy. To make this stringy cheese, producers stretch the curded cow’s milk in a process known as pasta filata. The result is a stretchy cheese with an intense flavour that melts beautifully on casseroles! Some of the most traditional types of mozzarella are still made with buffalo milk, and they’re known as buffalo mozzarella.
4. Pecorino
Pecorino is an exciting Italian cheese made with sheep’s milk in Central Italy. Pecora means sheep in Italian, and the sheep’s thick, high-quality milk becomes semi-hard and hard cheese you can grate over pasta or cook with.
You’ll find the finest pecorino straight from Forteto’s or Guffanti’s cheese cellars at Casinetto. This is as legitimate as pecorino gets! Pecorino is a wonderful alternative to Parmigiano.
5. Provolone
Provolone is a delicious Italian cheese made with the pasta filata method but aged until intense and rich.
Provola is the smaller type of Provolone. This tasty Italian cheese is often smoked. The cheese can be spicy, too, and it’s widely used for grilling.
6. Mascarpone
Now for a creamy Italian cheese, nothing beats pure mascarpone. If you’ve ever tried the outstanding tiramisu, you know what we’re talking about!
Mascarpone is made with fresh cream, from which producers remove the way to create a creamy cheese with many uses — it’s the star in many cheesecake recipes, for example. Still, mascarpone is used in sweet and savoury dishes, particularly in Northern Italy. For a lovely mascarpone made 100% with Italian milk, try Sterilgarda, a traditional producer with fifty years of cheese-making experience.
7. Gorgonzola
Gorgonzola is the most prominent blue cheese in the Italian repertoire. Blue veins and green spots, proper of well-aged cheese inoculated with Penicillium glaucum mould, make this type of cheese instantly recognisable.
Gorgonzola’s crumbly texture, strong fragrance and salty flavour make it a lovely pizza topping or ravioli filling and a critical ingredient in cream pasta sauces.
8. Stracciatella
Stracciatella means’ small shreds’, and it’s because this creamy Italian cheese is made with shredded curd cheese, often by mozzarella producers. Traditional producers, like Palazzo, still make the finest stracciatella with Cow milk.
Buttery and creamy, flavourful and deliciously fresh, this is one of those Italian cheeses to enjoy during summer on a tossed salad.
9. Stracchino
Not to be confused with stracciatella, stracchino is a Lombardy speciality, often labelled as ‘crescenza.’ This addictively soft cheese has a spreadable, creamy texture, and it’s made with the finest milk from Alpine cows.
Stracchino has no rind, and it’s often pressed into blocks. It comes without saying a slice of this tender cheese is hard to forget.
10. Ricotta
Ending on a high note, ricotta cheese is amongst the most attractive Italian products, and home cooks globally love it for its consistently extraordinary quality.
Ricotta means ‘double-cooked’, and it’s because traditional producers, like Valle Verde, harvest high-quality whey during cheese production and curd it with an acidic ingredient. What you get is a buttery Italian cheese similar to cottage cheese. The best ricotta, of course, you’ll find only at Casinetto.
Posted on March 3, 2022
Every Dessert Has a Season. Tiramisu Didn't Get the Memo
Every dessert has its season. This is not an opinion, it's just true, and somewhere inside you, you already know it. Chocolate lava cake is in December. The kind of thing you order when it's cold outside and you've stopped pretending to care about anything. Panna cotta is July, white, minimal, barely there, like it's also too hot to try. Crumble is October without question. Apple, pear, whatever's in the bowl, it belongs to grey skies and Sunday afternoons and the specific melancholy of a season ending. These desserts have their moment. They know it. They stay in their lane. Tiramisu does not stay in its lane Tiramisu shows up in January when you need something that feels like a decision. It shows up in April because the weather is nice and why not. It's on the menu in August at that outdoor restaurant and you order it even though it's 38 degrees because of course you do. It appears at Christmas, at birthdays, on a Wednesday with no occasion whatsoever. It does not check the calendar. It does not ask if this is a good time. And the thing is, it's never wrong. That's what separates it. Seasonal desserts are right once a year, maybe twice. Tiramisu is right in the way that a good espresso is right, in the way that sitting down after a long day is right. Not because of the weather. Because of what it does. It lifts. That's the whole job, and the job doesn't have an off-season. There's a reason Italian nonnas aren't making tiramisu only in autumn. There's a reason it's on every menu, in every month, in every city that has ever decided to take dessert seriously. It's not nostalgia. It's not a habit. The combination, espresso, mascarpone, cocoa, patience, works on a human being regardless of what the temperature is outside. Some things are just built differently The ones that prove it every time, in every season, start with the right ingredients. Mascarpone that tastes like it came from somewhere specific. Savoiardi that haven't forgotten what they're for. Cocoa that finishes clean. Not seasonal. Not occasional. Just right.
Casinetto Named Best Gourmet Food Supplier by CPI Media Group
We're proud to announce that Casinetto has been recognised as Best Gourmet Food Supplier by CPI Media Group, a distinction that reflects years of dedication to elevating the regional culinary landscape. What This Recognition Means This award acknowledges more than our product portfolio—it recognises our role as a trusted partner to the UAE and KSA's most discerning culinary professionals. From Michelin-starred kitchens to boutique delis, our clients rely on us to source ingredients that meet the exacting standards their reputations demand. The selection process evaluated suppliers across multiple criteria: product authenticity, supply chain reliability, portfolio diversity, and commitment to quality assurance. CPI Media Group's rigorous assessment underscores what sets Casinetto apart in an increasingly competitive market. The Casinetto Standard Excellence in gourmet food supply isn't just about logistics—it's about curation. Every product we represent, from French artisanal cheeses to Italian charcuterie, Spanish olive oils to premium pantry essentials, undergoes careful evaluation for provenance, quality, and market fit. Our team works directly with producers across Europe and beyond, ensuring traceability, authenticity, and consistent availability. This direct-source approach means our partners get more than products—they get the story, the expertise, and the assurance that comes with genuine partnerships. Looking Ahead As the regional F&B sector continues to evolve, so does our commitment to bringing the world's finest gourmet products to the Gulf. This recognition from CPI Media Group validates our approach and motivates us to raise the bar even higher. To our restaurant partners, retail clients, and culinary professionals who trust us with their most important ingredient decisions: thank you. Your standards drive our excellence. The best tables in the region deserve the best ingredients. That's the promise we renew with this recognition.
Italian Cuisine at the Heart of UNESCO’s Cultural Heritage
UNESCO has given special cultural heritage status to Italian cooking, viewing it as so much more than simply a set of recipes. This award honours Italian cuisine as a living tradition, as something to be practised, shared and handed down from one generation to the next. National favourites like pizza were already on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, but this respect extends beyond that. It honors italian traditional cooking in its entirety, and the way it is taught, preserved and practised all over Italy, both at home, where the teachings have been passed down from generation to generation in families, and through other venues such as home kitchens, food schools for young children and adults as well. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has championed the recognition of Italian cuisine since her election, captured its essence perfectly when she said that Italian cuisine is not just food or a set of recipes, but a culture, tradition, labour, and collective wealth. What Does This Mean? For millions of food lovers worldwide, this recognition is a reminder that the cuisine of Italy is worth slowing down to savour. It celebrates cooking that honours time, technique and ingredients selected with care. From crunchy Sicilian cannoli to Calabrian ’nduja, Italian food continues to excel by being characterful, deep and rooted in place. The announcement was made during a UNESCO assembly meeting in Delhi, where the cultural agency described Italian cuisine as a powerful way of connecting with family and community, whether at home, in schools, or through festivals, ceremonies, and social gatherings. Luigi Scordamaglia, CEO of Filiera Italia, has referred to the distinction as a joint success for the entire Made in Italy supply chain, underlining the team effort behind Italian food, from producers and handicrafts people to those who renew this tradition every day. He additionally stressed the Mediterranean diet, adding that when we refer to it, we are really talking about Italian cuisine itself, which is based on balance in unity, variety and respect for produce. At Casinetto, this recognition comes all too naturally. It embodies the same virtues we admire in any product we decide to carry: authenticity, tradition and food that tells a story worth preserving. We collaborate with producers who cherish tradition, value quality ingredients and believe in the integrity of their craft rather than cutting corners. The things we have on our shelves are not the result of trend-chasing, but rather an appreciation for the stories and know-how behind them, values that, by celebrating certain practices around the world, UNESCO has decided to endorse.