7 Norwegian Cheeses You Should Know

Given its Northern European location, it should come as no surprise that Norway has a rich and varied cheese tradition just as robust as that found in Switzerland or the Netherlands. But unlike those neighbors to the south, Norway's cheeses rarely receive much attention outside of Scandinavia. And for anyone who loves cheese, that's a real shame.

Norway not only has some of Europe’s most unique cheeses, including the caramel-flavored brunost and the hairy gamalost, it also boasts two recent world champions, Kraftkar a blue cheese by Tingvollost, and Fanaost by Ostegården. The production of many of its cheeses, including gamalost, Kraftkar and Fanaost, are still closely tied to small family farms.

These 7 Norwegian cheeses beautifully illustrate the country’s cheesemaking heritage, from the curds and whey of the ancient past to the modern renaissance of Scandinavian cuisine.

Brunost

Technically Norway’s most iconic cheese isn’t a cheese at all. Named for its warm golden-tan color, brunost or “brown cheese” is made by boiling down goat’s milk whey, a byproduct of actual cheese production. The result is a firm, silky-smooth foodstuff with a rich caramel flavor that is simultaneously sweet and tangy.

Brunost has deep roots in Norway and, indeed, throughout Scandinavia where it’s more frequently called mysost; evidence of whey cheese dates all the way back to 650 BCE. But the creation of modern brunost is attributed to Anne Hov, a milkmaid in rural Gudbrandsdalen northwest of Lillehammer, who came up with the idea of adding cream to whey then boiling the mixture to evaporate more than 80% of its liquid, leaving behind a fatty solid. Despite being cheese-adjacent, brunost is sold and eaten like true cheeses, often accompanying sandwiches or crackers, or mixed into sauces. In the US the cheese is marketed as Ski Queen.

Pultost

Pultost is a traditional sour milk cheese hailing from the Hedmark and Oppland regions of southeastern Norway. Its crumbled curds are made by slowly heating fresh skimmed milk and lactic bacteria then leaving them to ferment at room temperature. Salt and caraway seeds are added at the end of the fermentation process, resulting in the production of gamey, light-yellow gobs whose flavor grows stronger and more intense the longer the cheese is left to mature (up to a year).

Pultost’s Norwegian pedigree is centuries old. Once produced as a “poor food” for family consumption, a byproduct of the butter and cheeses sold by small mountain summer farms called sæter, these days pultost is mass produced by Norway’s two largest dairy companies, Tine and Synnøve Finden. Sold in both spreadable and grainy forms, pultost is typically slathered on buttered bread or flatbrød (Norwegian flatbread) or eaten alongside boiled potatoes.

Gamalost

Easily Norway’s most distinct cheese, gamalost or “old cheese” is moist, coarse and pungent with an aroma that rivals that of dirty socks. Made with the curds of soured cow’s milk, gamalost gets its unique flavor and texture from Mucor mucedo mold, which was traditionally introduced to the young cheese via regular hand rubbings, preferably by a virgin milkmaid—or so legend has it. After curing for four or five weeks, the ripe yellow-brown gamalost is marbled with cat hair-like strands.

Affectionately called “Viking Viagra,” gamalost likely originated in the 16th century in Norway’s western fjordlands in and around the town of Vik. The cheese is still almost exclusively produced there (through the dairy company Tine) and each summer, locals celebrate their unique foodstuff with the four-day Gamalostfestivalen (Gamalost Festival) during which they prepare a cheese in the traditional open-air method for the gathered crowd.

Although gamalost has declined in popularity in recent years, aficionados and producers point to the cheese’s superfood properties—high in protein, peptides and vitamin K2 and low in fat—as one of the reasons they expect a resurgence in interest in the future. Gamalost is traditionally eaten with buttered bread or crackers and topped with sour cream, syrup or cranberry jelly.

Nøkkelost

First made in the 17th century, nøkkelost is a semi-hard cow’s milk cheese flavored with cumin, caraway seeds and cloves. Like Dutch leyden cheese, nøkkelost has a creamy texture that is somewhat springier than its cousin to the south. Ripened for three months, the pale-yellow nøkkelost, which means “key cheese” in Norwegian, is warm and festive, nutty and tangy.

Marketed in the US in the 1960s by Kraft Foods, nøkkelost today is produced primarily in Scandinavia (where it is sometimes known as kuminost) and eaten with dark breads like pumpernickel and fruits like apple and pear.

Kraftkar

If gamalost and brunost are icons of Norway’s cheesemaking heritage, Kraftkar is one of the crowning jewels of its cheesemaking future. A well-balanced blue cheese produced on the northwestern edge of the bulbous lower Norwegian peninsula, it took artisan cheesemakers Tingvollost 13 years to come up with the recipe. In 2016, Kraftkar proved it was worth the wait. At the 29th annual World Cheese Awards it beat out over 3,000 cheeses from around the globe to become the world champion.

One of the things that makes Kraftkar so special is the use of milk and cream from the cows on the Tingvollost family farm in the village of Torjulvågen, where four generations currently live. Kraftkar gets its sharp tang and creamy texture from Penicillium roqueforti. Its name, which translates to “strongman” in English, is a nod to legendary farmhand Tore Nordbø who was renowned for his incredible strength and size. Exquisite alone, Kraftkar pairs best with crackers, walnuts, figs, and jam.

Fanaost

Like Kraftkar, Fanaost, a semi-hard cooked cheese classified as a gouda, is a champion. In 2018, two years after Kraftkar took the top prize at the World Cheese Awards, Fanaost stepped into the spotlight, beating out close to 3,500 other cheeses to be crowned the world’s best.

Fanaost comes from the smallest dairy ever to win the top prize at the World Cheese Awards. Made on the small Ostegården farm south of Bergen, farmer Jørn Hafslund credits its sweet-and-savory taste to the 14 different grasses that make up the diet of his 12 cows. Aging the Fanaost brings out its sharp flavor—salty and nutty with a bit of crystalline texture—which pairs beautifully with bread, crackers and mustard.

Jarlsberg

Probably the best known of Norway’s cheeses, Jarlsberg is a mild, nutty and slightly sweet cheese made from cow’s milk. Aged anywhere between three and 15 months, Jarlsberg is smooth and creamy enough to be considered an “all purpose” cheese which works as well in prepared foods as it does as a snack. Its distinctive holes are produced by milk-borne Propionibacterium freudenreichii bacteria, which is added into the cheese during production.

The first Jarlsberg cheeses appeared in the 1850s in the county of Vestfold, 50 miles south of Oslo. It’s modern form, however, was developed by dairy scientist Ole Martin Ystgaard at the Agricultural University of Norway from a formula brought to Norway by Swiss cheesemakers. The resulting recipe is a secret closely held by the first company to trademark the cheese in 1972, Tine. While they still make the majority of the world’s Jarlsberg, smaller producers in Norway and beyond also create their own version of the popular cheese, which shares many of its properties with Swiss Emmental.