What Are the Best Cheeses for Fondue?

Fondue is a melted marvel of cheese and wine, but what are the best cheeses to use? While certain Swiss cheeses are most traditional, there are other cheeses to consider as well, and tips to make the cheese stay gooey and not separate.

Swiss Cheeses

Caroline Hostettler, a Swiss native and founder of Quality Cheese and Adopt-an-alp has found that people may feel intimidated about making fondue. She shares that fondue is similar to baking, in that following ratios is necessary. Read more about Hostettler and Adopt-an-alp.

According to Hostettler, the two most traditional Swiss cheeses used in making fondue are the Gruyère AOP, a hard cheese, and Vacherin Fribourgeois, a semi-soft, raw cow’s milk cheese. Both are used in a traditional recipe known as Moitié-Moitié, which incorporates equal parts of both these cheeses. Read more about Moitié-Moitié fondue.

In making this fondue recipe, Hostettler explains, “I always say that the Gruyère adds the spice and the flavor and the Vacherin Fribourgeois makes it real smooth and ties it all together.”

Another Swiss cheese that Hosteller recommends for fondue is Appenzeller, a semi-firm cheese from northeast Switzerland. Read more about Appenzeller.

“It is a great melting cheese with bold flavors,” she shares. As a suggested fondue recipe, Hostettler recommends using a third of Gruyère, a third of Vacherin Fribourgeois, and then a third of a Swiss regional cheese like Appenzeller.

However, Hostettler notes that Vacherin Fribourgeois is a seasonally-available cheese that’s most often found in the wintertime but it might be a challenge to find in the U.S. when this season is over.

Amy Thompson, the brand representative for Appenzeller in the U.S., agrees that Appenzeller is a great cheese for fondue because it melts so well. “It’s a semi-hard cheese that has more moisture than other hard cheeses, and when combined with the traditional fondue ingredients, makes the perfect texture," she explains.

There are various age profiles of Appenzeller cheese available, White Label, with a portion of cream added, and Black Label aged 6-9 months; but when it comes to cooking with cheese Thompson recommends a 3 month aged Appenzeller Silver Label noting, " It is good for any fondue recipe because it melts beautifully and it has a great herbaceous and nutty flavor."

As an alternative, a good substitute for Vacherin Fribourgeois is a goat milk raclette, a Swiss cheese that’s known for being sliced while heated. “It has a great melt ability; it has a high-water content,” says Hostettler.

She adds that while some fondue makers might use Emmentaler AOP, a Swiss medium-hard cheese with distinctive holes, but she doesn't. “For me, [with] Emmentaler when you melt it, it gets stringy. It gets gummy almost.” Read more about Emmentaler AOP.

Another fondue appropriate cheese is L'Etivaz, an Alpine cow’s milk cheese with a rich fruity and nutty flavor. This cheese is only made in the summertime and gets its name from the hamlet within the southwestern region of the Swiss Alps where it’s produced. It’s similar to Gruyère but sweeter and comes in a smaller wheel size. By AOP law, every wheel of L’Etivaz has to be made over an open wood fire in a hut or chalet.

“I know in the area of L'Etivaz, people do make plain 100 percent, L'Etivaz for fondue and they’re wonderful. So that also is traditional” shares Hostettler.

Joe Salonia learned about making fondue through his job at the Swiss cheese company Gourmino Affinage & Selection. It has helped him to develop his own base recipe of various cheese blends. Unlike Hostettler, he favors Emmentaler. “I advise that Emmentaler is the base of the mountain, and I believe modestly 25 percent should be used as a good base to that because it's such an iconic cheese,” says Salonia. “It provides a good foundation of flavor.”

Salonia is aware that sometimes Emmentaler is criticized for being too stringy, however, depending on how much fondue you're making, he said he was taught a remedy to fix this is by adding a couple of teaspoons—or sometimes up to a tablespoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice. He explains that this method “not only acts as a delicious flavor counterpoint to the very rich cheese flavors, but it also shortens the proteins and it helps the cheese snap around the bread so that you're not getting this long strand.”

If you’re curious to try yet another Swiss cheese for fondue making, Salonia recommends Rockflower, a mature raw cow’s milk Swiss cheese with a nutty umami flavor made Entlebuch or Hornbacher, a fresh cow’s milk produced at a Swiss mountain dairy, Fritzenhaus by award-winning master cheesemaker Michael Spycher.

Unconventional Choices

Aside from traditional Swiss cheeses, there are some unconventional cheeses that can also be incorporated into fondue making. The blue cheese, Gorgonzola Dolce, can be used as it is “very, very creamy” and will melt well, and makes for mixing in with a blend.

Taleggio, a semi-soft Italian rind-washed cheese, also does very well in a fondue. Hostettler explains that if the whole cheese is used, including the rind, “you will have pieces that will never completely melt down because the rind just doesn't integrate like the taste of the cheese.”

Shares Hostettler “To me, this would be very fascinating because I like the contrast between the washed rind that still contains some salt grains. And then the mass that is really, really, really just smooth and lush. That would be a fun fondue to do, with Taleggio. I have tried this too and it works well. It melts so well. It has a very unique flavor.”

Or for an interesting twist with raclette, Hostetetter recommends trying ones flavored with red pepper flakes or green pepper corns, or with cumin. And with your accompaniments, consider small potatoes or pair with a serving of kimchi or cornichons in place of gherkins. Other pairings include pears and grapes and nuts.

However, she notes that there’s a lot wiggle room with selecting a fondue cheese. “Basically as long as you take cheeses that have enough fat and enough moisture; that is really important. The possibilities are endless, and as long as you do not use low fat or flavorless cheeses, they will work.”

An American Fondue

There are non-traditional cheese choices that also can be used in making fondue. For example, Vermont Creamery’s St. Albans is marketed as an alternative providing melted goodness. Named after a Vermont town, this aged cow’s milk cheese is delicately aged for 11 days. It is shaped as a cheese disc and is sold in a ceramic crock that is also safe to use as a baking dish. It can be placed into the oven to create a creamy, dipping delicacy for two.

Sarah Simms, co-founder of the Lady & Larder in Santa Monica, a shop that focuses exclusively on American craft cheeses, recommends Uplands Cheese Pleasant Ridge Reserve, an award-winning Alpine-style cheese from Wisconsin. Read more about Pleasant Ridge Reserve.

“I love the raw milk flavor and it melts so beautifully,” shares Simms. She also recommends some other higher moisture cheese options such as Point Reyes TomaTruffle and Valley Ford Highway 1, which is a fontina style cheese that has a really rich, nutty flavor on the finish.

Like Salonia, she offers a tip for ensuring gooey success, “I think the trick when making fondue at home is to sprinkle your cheese with a little cornstarch which helps keep the fondue from separating on you as you heat it.”

If you're now ready to throw a fondue party, check out the rituals of fondue.