Low-cost, shelf-stable cheese sauce

Abstract

A cheese sauce and meal kit including at least one pouch containing the cheese sauce. The cheese sauce exhibits desirable texture and mouth-feel, as well as desirable flavor and visual appearance. Further, the cheese sauce has a shelf-life of up to twelve months or more. The cheese sauce generally includes cheese solids present in an amount from about 10 weight percent or less, at least one non-cheese dairy, water, a natural preservative such as nisin, at least one phosphate, salt, oil, and a savory flavor profile. The cheese sauce can be processed using a pasteurization process, and packaged using a hot fill process. The cheese sauce can be packaged into pouches and the like for use with meal kits and side dishes.

Description

RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This application is a divisional of application Ser. No. 12 / 016,084 filed Jan. 17, 2008, entitled “LOW-COST, SHELF-STABLE CHEESE SAUCE” which is hereby fully incorporated herein by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The current invention relates generally to cheese sauce. More particularly, the current invention relates to a low-cost, low cheese solid content, pasteurized / processed hot fill cheese sauce.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Imitation cheese sauces, such as those packaged in pouches, are often used in the food industry as components in food kits, such as, for example, meal kits, side dishes, and snack kits. Generally, food kits can include at least one pre-packaged food component or ingredient, and the cheese sauce component. The pre-packaged food components can include, for example, dried pasta, refrigerated pasta, refrigerated meats, snack chips, rice, taco bake, potatoes, dehydrated vegetables, refrigerated vegetables, dough products, pizza-...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

"The present invention provides a low-cost, shelf-stable cheese sauce that has good texture, mouth-feel, flavor, visual appearance, and shelf-life stability. The cheese sauce passes challenge studies and has a shelf-life of up to twelve months or more. The cheese sauce includes cheese solids, non-cheese dairy ingredients, water, a natural preservative, salt, oil, and a savory flavor profile. The cheese sauce is processed using a pasteurization process and packaged using a hot fill process. The invention also includes pre-packaged food components that can be combined with the cheese sauce to create a meal."

Problems solved by technology

Although the UHT process has been highly successful in perishable-prone products, high capital and maintenance costs are often associated with the UHT process.

However, for cheese sauce containing high levels of cheese solids, a low quality cheese sauce product results when using retort processing because the cheese sauce is not stable at such severe retort conditions.

Cheese products with 51% or greater of cheese solids are characterized as “spreads” rather than “sauces.” With these relatively high levels of cheese solids in current sauce, the cost of cheese is critical in the cost of manufacturing the cheese sauce.

As the price of cheese rises, the cost of the cheese sauce also rises.

However, current technologies, as discussed above prevent decreasing cheese content to below about 24% by weight.