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Cilento cacioricotta

Slow Food Presidium · PAT · Cheeses · Campania

Apulica editorial team · Sources checked:

In brief

History and origin

Apart from the Cervati and the Alburni plateau, which offer excellent grazing for herds of Podolica cattle, the Cilento is goat country. Mediterranean scrub, shrubs, tufted grasses and low trees are the ideal food for a hardy, lively animal like the goat.

Over the centuries adaptation to this environment produced a local population, the Cilento goat or Cilentana, divided into three groups by the colour of the coat: grey, fawn or, most often, black. The quality of the pastures and of the husbandry shows in the cheeses, known for their aromatic complexity.

Among them cacioricotta holds a special place, a cheese whose technique is also found in Apulia and Basilicata. In the Cilento it has been made and sold for a long time: it is listed among the traditional products of Campania as cacioricotta caprino del Cilento and is a Slow Food Presidium.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Cacioricotta del Cilento · Regione Campania, Assessorato Agricoltura — Cacioricotta caprino del Cilento (prodotto tradizionale) · Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026)

Area and method of production

The only raw material is fresh goat's milk. The milk is heated to boiling point and then left to cool naturally to about 37 degrees; at this temperature kid rennet is added.

The curd is broken vigorously, gathered and pressed into fuscelle, the wicker baskets through which the whey can drain. It is precisely this combination of heat and rennet that explains the name: coagulation is partly due to rennet, as in a cheese, the cacio, and partly to heat, as in a ricotta. In this way both the milk proteins and the whey proteins set.

Cacioricotta is made all year round and eaten fresh or after a shorter or longer ageing.

Sources: Regione Campania, Assessorato Agricoltura — Cacioricotta caprino del Cilento (prodotto tradizionale) · Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Cacioricotta del Cilento

How to recognise it

Cilento cacioricotta is cylindrical and leans towards straw yellow. The colour deepens with age, and so does the flavour: fresh it is delicate, aged it becomes bold.

With long ageing the cheese turns hard, compact and flaky, with a slight spicy note, and becomes a grating cheese. The quality of the milk from goats fed on the herbs and shrubs of the scrub gives it an aromatic complexity.

Sources: Regione Campania, Assessorato Agricoltura — Cacioricotta caprino del Cilento (prodotto tradizionale) · Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Cacioricotta del Cilento

In the kitchen

Cacioricotta has two lives in the kitchen. Fresh, it is eaten in salads or with honey.

Aged, it becomes a grating cheese, and this is when it meets the area's typical dish: fusilli with castrato ragù, a sauce of castrated ram. Hard, flaky and slightly spicy, it is the right cheese to grate over this sheep-meat sauce.

The choice between the two versions therefore depends on ageing, which the Campania Region describes precisely: the older the cheese, the deeper its straw colour and flavour. Young cacioricotta is enjoyed on its own or in a cold dish; mature cacioricotta goes into the kitchen as a seasoning, in place of other grating cheeses.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Cacioricotta del Cilento · Regione Campania, Assessorato Agricoltura — Cacioricotta caprino del Cilento (prodotto tradizionale)

Where to taste it

Cacioricotta is found in the Cilento, in the province of Salerno, where goats graze among Mediterranean scrub and hills. The landscape that produces it is the inland one, among the heights around the Cervati and the Alburni.

Since it is made all year round, it can be tasted in any season: fresh in the warm months, perhaps in a salad, and aged over pasta. A trip to the Cilento is a chance to look for it directly from local producers and to taste it with fusilli and castrato ragù in the villages where this dish is at home.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Cacioricotta del Cilento · Regione Campania, Assessorato Agricoltura — Cacioricotta caprino del Cilento (prodotto tradizionale)

Protection

When

Where

Campania