Maytag Blue is an American blue cheese made in Newton, Iowa, and it has been made in the same place since 1941.
What separates it from most blues is not the mould but the milk. The cheese is built on homogenized cow's milk using a process developed with Iowa State University, which gives it a whiter paste and a sharper edge than blues made from untreated milk.
It arrives as a rindless four-pound wheel wrapped in foil, cave-aged, and it crumbles rather than slices.
In This Article
What Makes Maytag Blue Different From Other Blues
The cheese comes from one dairy rather than a region or a style. Maytag Dairy Farms has produced it in Newton since 1941, so the name on the label is a family rather than a place designation.
The family is the same one behind the washing machines.
The producer describes it as America's first blue cheese made with cow's milk.
That claim is about milk rather than about blue cheese generally, since European blues had used sheep and goat milk for centuries. The dairy itself hedges it, saying only that the cheese may be the first cow's-milk blue wheel produced in America.
Treat it as a branded product with one source. There is no regional specification behind it, so the maker's own name is the only guarantee of what you are buying.
From One Cow in 1919 to the First Wheels in 1941
The cheese exists because of a surplus rather than a plan.
E.H. Maytag bought a single Holstein-Friesian cow in 1919 to supply milk for his own family, then kept expanding the herd until its offspring were winning livestock competitions nationally.
- 1919: E.H. Maytag buys one Holstein-Friesian cow for family milk
- 1930s: the herd grows into a prize-winning operation with milk to spare
- 1940: E.H. dies and his sons Frederick and Robert take over
- 1941: the brothers work with Iowa State to design a cow's-milk blue
- 11 October 1941: the first wheels of Maytag Blue are formed
- 1962: Fritz Maytag takes over and leads the company for 50 years
When E.H. died in 1940, his sons Frederick Louis Maytag II and Robert inherited a herd producing more milk than the family needed.
Their answer was to turn the surplus into something that would keep. The original milk bottling facility was converted into a cheesemaking plant, and the first wheels were formed on 11 October 1941.
Distribution was the second invention.
Fred built a mail-order business around a printed catalogue, letting customers post an order form and have cheese delivered to the door, which was unusual for perishable food at the time.
By the 1950s the cheese had national standing. It has since collected a James Beard Foundation lifetime achievement award and a Gold sofi Award in the cow's-milk cheese category.
Why the Milk Is Homogenized Before It Becomes Cheese
Two Iowa State University microbiologists, Clarence Lane and Bernard W. Hammer, developed and patented the method the dairy still works from.
Its distinctive step is homogenizing the milk before the cheese is made.
The milk is pushed through at 2000 to 3500 psi at 80 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which breaks the fat globules down far smaller than they start.
Smaller fat globules change what you taste. They expose more surface to the enzymes and the mould, which pushes flavour development faster and harder than an unhomogenized blue of the same age.
The paste turns whiter as well, because homogenized fat scatters light differently.
That is why a Maytag wedge looks paler and more porcelain than a yellow-tinted European blue sitting beside it.
Penicillium roqueforti does the veining, as it does in most blues. The mould is ordinary here, and the milk treatment is the part worth knowing.
What It Tastes Like and How It Breaks
The aroma arrives clean and lactic rather than barnyard, which is the first surprise for anyone expecting a European blue.
Underneath it the flavour runs to buttermilk and sour cream, tangy enough that one experienced taster compared it directly to ranch dressing. Salt then arrives assertively and finishes savoury.
The paste is ivory and shot through with veins dark enough to read as sapphire rather than grey-green.
It should feel firm, moist, and tender at the same time, which is a narrower target than most blues have to hit.
Age moves it in two directions together. Between three and six months in the caves it becomes creamier in the mouth and tangier on the finish, so an older wheel is not simply stronger.
The standard cheese is rindless, which removes a variable other blues carry. There is no crust to trim, no surface flora to judge, and nothing between the foil and the paste.
Under a knife it fractures instead of slicing.
Pressing a wedge produces irregular crumbs and some dust rather than clean planks, which is why the dairy sells crumbles as a product in their own right.
Plan the serving around that. It suits scattering, dressing, and folding far better than a cheese board where guests are expected to cut neat pieces themselves.
Standard Blue or Farm Reserve
The dairy sells two genuinely different cheeses under one name, and the gap is not simply age or price.
Farm Reserve is aged with its natural rind left on, where the standard wheel stays rindless throughout.
That single change alters the surface and the paste behind it. Keeping the rind lets surface activity work inward instead of stopping at foil, which the dairy describes as producing a bolder, earthy cheese with a nutty undertone and a fudgy density the standard version does not reach.
It sells as three 4 oz wedges for 36 dollars or as a four-pound wheel at 115 dollars, and the wheel is frequently out of stock.
Choose the standard wheel when you want the clean tangy crumble for dressings and salads. Choose Farm Reserve when the cheese is the point and someone will eat it slowly with bread.
Maytag Blue Against Roquefort, Stilton, and Gorgonzola
The four are not interchangeable, and the differences start with the milk rather than the mould.
| Cheese | Milk | What sets it apart | Choose it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maytag Blue | Pasteurized cow | Homogenized milk, rindless, pale crumbly paste | You want sharp tang that scatters over a dish |
| Roquefort | Raw sheep | Saltier and richer, with a protected French origin | You want the strongest, most saline option |
| Stilton | Pasteurized cow | Denser paste with a crusted natural rind | You need a blue that holds its shape on a board |
| Gorgonzola | Pasteurized cow | Dolce style is soft and spreadable, piccante is firmer | You want mild sweetness or a spoonable texture |
Sheep milk is the sharpest dividing line.
Roquefort carries a richness and salinity that no cow's-milk blue reproduces, so swapping one for the other changes a dressing noticeably.
For a straight replacement, Stilton sits closest on milk and intensity while giving you a firmer paste. Gorgonzola dolce goes the other way and will loosen a dressing that Maytag would have held together.
Among American blues, Amablu is the nearest comparison, since it is also cave-aged in the Midwest and built for crumbling.
What Changed After 2016
In February 2016 Maytag issued three recalls with the FDA over possible contamination with Listeria monocytogenes, then stopped production and shipping for several months.
Sales had resumed by September 2017 and the dairy has operated continuously since. The episode still surfaces in search results without its ending attached, which is why it is worth stating plainly.
The larger change came next.
After roughly 75 years of making raw-milk cheese, the creamery began pasteurizing its milk, so a cheese people had known for three generations quietly changed its starting material.
The herd went as well. The creamery sold its dairy cows, and the milk now comes from neighbouring farms rather than the Maytag Holsteins the whole operation was built on.
Ownership followed the same direction.
Midwest Growth Partners acquired the company in 2019 and AgCertain bought it in July 2022, ending more than 80 years of family stewardship.
None of this makes the current cheese worse, and the recipe and the caves remain in place. It does mean an older description of Maytag Blue as a raw-milk cheese from the family's own herd no longer matches what you can buy.
Pasteurized milk lowers but does not remove the risk that soft and blue cheeses carry. Pregnant readers, older adults, young children, and anyone immunocompromised should follow current medical guidance on blue cheese rather than treating pasteurization alone as clearance.
Check pregnancy cheese safety for the general rules, then read the label on the piece in front of you.
Wheel, Wedge, or Crumbles
The dairy sells the same cheese in several formats, and the gap between them is mostly about how fast you can get through it.
- 4 lb wheel: 99 dollars, the classic format and the best value per pound
- 2 lb wheel: 59 dollars, a more realistic size for a household
- Farm Reserve 4 lb wheel: 115 dollars, the natural-rind version, frequently sold out
- Wedges: from 10 dollars for 4 oz and 8 oz cuts
- Crumbles: from 4.50 dollars, sold up to 5 lb boxes
- Sampler: 39 dollars if you want to try before committing to a wheel
Buy the wheel only if you have a plan for four pounds of a perishable cheese. The producer's own storage window is six weeks refrigerated, which is generous but finite.
Crumbles are not a lesser product here.
Since the cheese fractures anyway, buying it already crumbled costs you nothing in quality and saves the mess.
Prices are the producer's direct pricing and move over time. Specialty retailers carry it at their own margins, so compare per pound rather than per package.
Where Maytag Blue Earns Its Place in the Kitchen
Its natural home is a dressing, and the buttermilk tang is the reason. The crumbly paste breaks down into buttermilk or sour cream without being forced, and the flavour already sits in the same family as the dairy around it.
| Use | How It Works |
|---|---|
| Wedge salad | Crumble it thickly over cold iceberg where the salt has something blunt to work against. |
| Dressing | Mash it into buttermilk or sour cream and leave some lumps rather than blending smooth. |
| Steak | Scatter it over hot beef and let residual heat soften it instead of melting it in a pan. |
| Burgers | Add it in the last minute of cooking so it slumps without running off the patty. |
| Pan sauce | Whisk a small amount into a reduced sauce, tasting for salt before you season further. |
Heat softens it but will not turn it into a smooth sauce on its own.
Add it late, off direct heat, and let it slump rather than trying to melt it like a young cheese.
Beef is the pairing that carries it best. The fat in a steak or a burger gives the salt and tang something to push against, which lighter proteins cannot.
Use less than feels right. The finish builds as you eat, so a plate that tastes balanced at the first bite can turn harsh three bites later.
What to Drink and Eat Alongside It
Culture Cheese Magazine puts honey and a barleywine-style ale against this cheese, and both work for the same reason. Sweetness and heavy malt give the salt something to push against.
A dry, light drink leaves the assertive finish standing alone, which is where blue cheese starts to taste harsh.
The dairy backs that direction commercially. It sells a wheel packaged with a bourbon pecan sauce, so bourbon and toasted nuts are a producer-endorsed match rather than a guess.
Keep the sweet element small.
Honey drizzled thinly lifts the savoury finish, while a heavy pour turns the plate into a dessert and buries the tang worth paying for.
For wine, the general blue cheese and wine logic applies here, because sweetness and body decide the match far more than colour does.
Keeping a Cut Wheel From Drying Out
The producer's instruction is specific and worth following exactly. Keep the cheese in its original foil, put that inside a plastic bag, and refrigerate for up to six weeks.
The foil is doing real work.
It holds moisture against a rindless paste that has no crust of its own to slow drying.
A bloom may appear on the surface over time. The dairy notes this is natural because the cheese contains no preservatives, so light surface growth is not a sign the wheel has failed.
Freeze it properly and it keeps for up to a year. Cut the wheel into portions, remove the plastic seal but leave the signature foil on, seal each piece into an airtight freezer bag with the air pressed out, then move it to the fridge 24 to 48 hours before serving.
Thawing slowly is the part people skip.
Going straight from freezer to counter wrecks the texture that the careful wrapping was protecting.
Judge a long-held piece by smell and cut face rather than by the date alone. Sharp ammonia, sliminess, or colour spreading through the paste are different from the surface bloom the dairy describes.
