People are Obsessed With This TikTok Cottage Cheese Hack

Nutritionists and dietitians have long touted the health benefits of cottage cheese, which is low and calories yet high in protein and other nutrients and can assist with weight loss and muscle gain. However, not everyone finds the dairy product exactly palatable, with a runny, watery consistency and chunky curds.

Enter TikTok, where a decidedly much more tasty way to eat cottage cheese has emerged. Instead of trying to mask the consistency by adding fruit or spreading on pieces of toast—people are now baking the stuff.

A cursory search for "baked cottage cheese" yields hundreds of results on the social media platform, with some simply spreading it on a baking sheet or parchment paper and others coming up with slightly more complicated and inventive recipes.

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model Katie Austin shared the basic hack on her TikTok account last month after hearing others rave about it. As you can see in her video, below, when baked, cottage cheese turns crispy and brown around the edges.

"I am so freaking amazed at how many things cottage cheese can do," Austin shared in her brief tutorial. "I just found out through a TikTok video that you can actually bake cottage cheese into like a flatbread, or a crisp, or maybe a tortilla, in a sense."

"Low carb, high protein, it's so cheesy, yummy, and so easy—it's literally one ingredient so why not try it," she added.

While you can certainly spread straight cottage cheese straight from the container and pop it in the oven, others are elevating their skills. In the below video posted by author and food blogger Healthy Little Peach, she attempts the "viral cottage cheese flatbread" by blending a cup of the curds along with two eggs, garlic powder, onion powder, and Italian seasoning to make a chicken sandwich.

The conclusion? "It is so. Flipping. Good," she says between mouthfuls on sandwich.

In another popular post from earlier this month, recipe vlogger Christine Paytas showed her followers how to make a tasty, low-fat single-serve buffalo chicken dip by combining cooked, shredded chicken with whipped cottage cheese, spices, and hot sauce; then topping with a bit of shredded cheddar cheese and baking in the oven.

The result looks as good as anything you've ever encountered at a Super Bowl party, with likely a fraction of the fat and calories.

In fact, just a one half-cup serving of low-fat cottage cheese boasts about 80 calories and a whopping 14 grams of protein. So for those who have always been cottage cheese curious, now's your chance to get on board with the trend.