Oaxaca cheese (queso Oaxaca) is the Mexican stretched-curd string cheese — hand-rolled into a ball that you pull apart into long, elastic threads. It melts and stretches like mozzarella but has its own technique and flavour. We make it in Madrid with Spanish pasteurised milk, following the original Oaxacan method.
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Oaxaca cheese — known in Mexico simply as quesillo — is a fresh, semi-soft cow's milk cheese from the state of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. It belongs to the pasta filata family (stretched-curd cheeses), the same family as mozzarella, provolone and burrata. But unlike mozzarella, it's worked into a long ribbon and then wound by hand into a tight ball that looks a bit like a yarn skein.
To use it, you don't slice it like a regular cheese: you pull it apart into strings. Those strings are what make it perfect for melting — they release into long, elastic threads when heated. Think of the satisfying "cheese pull" of a good quesadilla. That's Oaxaca cheese.
If you've eaten it in a Mexican restaurant in Spain and wondered why the supermarket equivalent never tasted right, it's because most "Mexican-style" cheese sold in EU supermarkets is either frozen import (broken cold chain, soft texture lost) or generic mozzarella relabelled. We make ours fresh in Madrid every week.
Oaxaca cheese is a melting cheese. It's at its best when warm.
Tip: don't grate it like a hard cheese. Pull strings off the ball by hand and scatter them. They'll melt evenly and stretch.
Find Corazón de Leche Oaxaca cheese at the gourmet cheese counter of El Corte Inglés in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Málaga and Bilbao. Ask the cheesemonger for "queso Oaxaca de Corazón de Leche". For restaurants and retailers, contact us directly.
Direct supply from Madrid, scaled volume pricing, cold-chain delivery 24–72 h across Spain. English-speaking team available.
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