Guide Cheese Making
Chapter 6 of 7
All chapters

Guides › Cheese Making › Rennet, annatto and your ingredients

Rennet, annatto and your ingredients

Chapter 6 of 71 min readUpdated October 2026
In this guide
  1. 1Where to start
  2. 2Your first cheese: ricotta
  3. 3Paneer
  4. 4Mozzarella
  5. 5What to do with whey
  6. 6Rennet, annatto and your ingredients
  7. 7When you’re ready for aged cheese

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Rennet

Rennet is an enzyme used in cheese making to curdle milk. That reaction makes the proteins and water break apart into curds and whey. Traditionally it comes from the stomach linings of ruminant animals such as cows, goats and lambs, but there are vegetarian kinds too: microbial rennet (made from molds or other microbes), fermentation-produced chymosin (the same enzyme, made by cultured microbes instead of taken from an animal), and vegetable rennet from plants such as thistle.

To tell whether a cheese is vegetarian, look for "vegetarian rennet" or "microbial enzymes" on the label. A label that just says "enzymes" or "rennet" doesn't tell you.

You can order rennet tablets online, including vegetarian rennet (Amazon).

Rennet tablets

Used to curdle the milk in the mozzarella recipe.

Check price on Amazon

Annatto

Annatto is a natural dye collected from the pulp of the seeds of the achiote tree. It's orange-red, and it's used in some cheeses for color rather than flavor (it adds little to none). You'll find it in cheeses like cheddar, Colby, Red Leicester and Mimolette.

Common questions about this chapter