The best honey with cheddar
It does, and the pairing is under-used in Britain where the cheese comes from. Aged cheddar's acidity and its savoury depth both have honey answers.
The rule behind this list
Moderate to intense honeys suited to cheese, carrying fruity, caramel, malty or woody character.
Selection is on the structured fields of each honey record — never on words appearing in a description. Same catalogue, same rule, same list, every time.
Honeys whose own record names this
The strongest evidence on the page: an author wrote down why this honey suits this, and the reason is quoted below in their words. Showing 24 of 55.
Aged cheeses. Dried fruit and salt is an old combination.
Matched on pronounced intensity, fruity and caramel, with cheese.
Aged cheddar and blue cheese. Mineral depth against salt.
Matched on pronounced intensity, malty, with cheese.
Aged sheep cheese. Thyme and salt, as in the Mediterranean.
Matched on pronounced intensity, caramel, with cheese.
Aged cheddar and clothbound cheeses. The honey's spice and dryness meet the cheese's sharpness on level terms rather than smothering it.
Matched on pronounced intensity, caramel and woody, with cheese.
Alpine cheeses — Comté, Gruyère, Beaufort. The oldest kind of pairing there is: two products of the same summer pasture, made from the same flora by different routes.
Matched on pronounced intensity, caramel, with cheese.
Aged cheddar and hard sheep's cheeses. The astringency stops the pairing collapsing into sweetness, which a milder honey would.
Matched on pronounced intensity, caramel and malty and woody, with cheese.
Aged sheep's cheeses. Fruit and caramel against salt and fat, with the honey supplying the only sweetness.
Matched on pronounced intensity, fruity and caramel, with cheese.
Aged cheddar and blue cheese. Enough malt weight to meet a strong cheese on level terms.
Matched on pronounced intensity, fruity and caramel and malty and woody, with cheese.
Hard aged cheeses. The herbal-resinous complexity holds up against salt and age.
Matched on pronounced intensity, caramel, with cheese.
Aged cheddar and blue cheese. The honey's tang and the cheese's sharpness meet rather than cancel.
Matched on pronounced intensity, fruity and caramel and malty, with cheese.
Aged pecorino and parmesan. The Italian pairing; fig and hard sheep cheese is a combination that predates the honey by centuries.
Matched on moderate intensity, fruity and malty, with cheese.
Alpine hard cheeses. The regional pairing; the honey's herbal note echoes the pasture the milk came from.
Matched on moderate intensity, caramel, with cheese.
Manchego and aged sheep cheese. The bitterness meets the salt directly.
Matched on intense intensity, caramel and malty and woody, with cheese.
Pecorino and aged sheep's cheeses. The classic Italian pairing, and the archetype of the whole principle: salt and fat need bitterness opposite them, not more sweetness.
Matched on intense intensity, woody, with cheese.
Alpine cheeses — comté, gruyère, appenzeller. Nutty, mineral cheeses from the same mountains. The pairing is regional and also genuinely well matched.
Matched on pronounced intensity, malty and woody, with cheese.
Alpine cheeses — Comté, Gruyère, Vacherin. Two products of the same forest and pasture, and a pairing that has existed as long as both have.
Matched on pronounced intensity, malty and woody, with cheese.
Aged sheep and goat cheeses. Salt and mineral on both sides — the honey does not have to pretend to be sweet.
Matched on intense intensity, woody, with cheese.
Alpine and mountain cheeses. Two products of the same forest and pasture, and a pairing as old as both.
Matched on pronounced intensity, caramel and malty and woody, with cheese.
Aged and washed-rind cheeses. The honey's own fermented note is in the same family as the rind's — a continuity rather than a contrast.
Matched on intense intensity, malty, with cheese.
Hard sheep's cheese. A herb honey against a salty aged cheese is the standard Mediterranean pairing, and the camphor edge stops it from being merely sweet.
Matched on pronounced intensity, caramel, with cheese.
Aged graviera or kefalotyri. Salt and hard aged fat against a honey with genuine bitterness — the same mechanism as pecorino and corbezzolo.
Matched on pronounced intensity, caramel and malty and woody, with cheese.
Manchego and aged sheep's cheese. The regional pairing — salt and hard aged fat against a mineral, barely sweet honey, on the same landscape that produces both.
Matched on intense intensity, malty and woody, with cheese.
Aged cheddar. Enough caramel weight to meet a sharp cheese without disappearing.
Matched on moderate intensity, caramel, with cheese.
Aged sheep's cheese. Bitter honey against a salty aged cheese, with neither softening.
Matched on pronounced intensity, caramel, with cheese.
Others the rule selects
These honeys have the right properties but no note in the catalogue about this particular food. That is weaker evidence and it is labelled as weaker. Showing 12 of 37, in catalogue order.
- Orange blossom honey
Unmistakably floral and citrus-scented — orange blossom in the glass, with the fruit itself somewhere behind it.
Matched on moderate intensity, fruity, with cheese.
- Lavender honey
Overtly perfumed — lavender flower, warm hay and a soft fruity sweetness underneath. Aromatic in a way most honeys are not.
Matched on pronounced intensity, fruity, with cheese.
- Ulmo honey
Strongly perfumed — jasmine and orange blossom over butterscotch, with a creamy weight that carries it. Aromatic in a way very few honeys are.
Matched on pronounced intensity, caramel, with cheese.
- Cherry blossom honey
Marzipan first, then a light stone-fruit sweetness — the almond note is the defining character and it is unmistakable.
Matched on moderate intensity, fruity, with cheese.
- Lemon blossom honey
Bright, sharply citrus and clean — lemon zest and blossom rather than the softer neroli of orange blossom, with a genuine acidity behind it.
Matched on moderate intensity, fruity, with cheese.
- Bloodwood honey
Strong and malty with a resinous depth and a distinct woody astringency — one of the more assertive Australian honeys.
Matched on pronounced intensity, caramel and malty and woody, with cheese.
- Leatherwood honey
Powerfully perfumed and slightly spicy — musk, warm blossom and something faintly balsamic. Distinctive to the point of being polarising.
Matched on pronounced intensity, caramel, with cheese.
- Blueberry honey
Tangy and lightly fruity with a green, slightly astringent edge — recognisably related to the berry without tasting of jam.
Matched on moderate intensity, fruity and caramel, with cheese.
- Meadow honey
Soft, warm and floral with a hay-and-clover base — recognisably a summer field, and gentler and less resinous than mountain honey.
Matched on moderate intensity, caramel, with cheese.
- Saw palmetto honey
Smoky and peppery with a warm resinous depth — an unusual and slightly savoury honey that divides opinion sharply.
Matched on pronounced intensity, woody, with cheese.
- Star thistle honey
Light and clean with a distinct anise-and-cinnamon lift and a fruity sweetness underneath. Delicate but not blank.
Matched on moderate intensity, fruity, with cheese.
- Coffee blossom honey
Strongly floral — jasmine and orange blossom over a light caramel base, with no coffee character whatsoever.
Matched on moderate intensity, caramel, with cheese.
Why it works
Cheddar is acid-set and long-aged, which gives it a tang that softer cow's cheeses lack, along with the savoury, almost brothy depth of well-developed proteolysis. As it ages it also gains salt concentration and tyrosine crystals. The honeys that suit it come from two directions: fruity honeys pick up the tang and turn it into something close to cheese-and-chutney, while malty and caramel honeys meet the savoury depth. The first is the more surprising and the more successful.
What to avoid
Very delicate honeys against a mature cheddar, where the fat and salt win easily. Young mild cheddar is a different case and takes a lighter honey happily, but young mild cheddar is also not much improved by anything.
How to do it
A hard mature cheddar, cut thick, with a spoon of fruity honey and an oatcake. Apple is the traditional British partner and a fruity honey does the same job. Cheddar with honey and mustard is the cooked version — a rarebit built on that trio is very good indeed.
Deciding between two of them
- Lavender vs orange blossom honey — The two great perfumed honeys of the Mediterranean. Both carry their flower's aromatics almost intact, which is rare — and they are wanted for opposite reasons.
- Chestnut vs strawberry tree honey — The two great bitter honeys of Europe. One is widely available and a good introduction; the other is the most bitter honey in production and divides people completely.
- Sidr vs ber honey — Two honeys from closely related jujube trees, with a price gap of many times and no laboratory test that separates them. This is the most consequential substitution in the premium honey trade.
- Pine vs fir honeydew honey — The two great conifer honeydews of Europe, from opposite ends of the continent. Both are made by bees collecting insect excretions rather than nectar, and they are the closest thing honey has to terroir.
Next to try
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