Best Shredded Mozzarella: Top Your Pizza with These

The best shredded mozzarella cheese is creamy, milky, salty, and melts like a dream. When heated, it should provide an unmatched cheesy and stretchy experience. (It’s also a pretty good snack, tossed into your mouth, straight out of the fridge.) So, what shredded mozzarella brought the most excellent taste and cheese pull? We tasted 25 different bagfuls of mozzarella shredded cheese over the course of two taste tests to find out. 

Shredded mozzarella, aka low-moisture mozzarella, is saltier, tangier, and more flavorful than whole balls of fresh mozzarella. And because it has less moisture, shredded mozzarella melts much better when heated; it bubbles, softens, and oozes, creating a tantalizing texture and taste. That makes shredded mozzarella cheese ideal for baked ziti, quesadillas, chicken parmesan, pizza, and the like. It’s one of the best and most useful processed foods you can purchase at the grocery store. Keep it stocked in your fridge at all times.

For these taste tests, we first ate a bunch of shredded mozzarella straight outta the bag like nobody was watching. We want the shredded mozzarella to be salty, milky, and fatty, and we also want sizable mozzarella shreds. Thick-cut ribbons are preferred (anything thin cut tends to clump together in the bag). Finally, after we decided which shredded mozzarellas tasted great, we conducted one final meltability test in the microwave. Most low-moisture mozzarella melts just fine, but plant-based mozzarellas were hit or miss. For our update of this taste test, we also included shredded mozzarella blends—like mozzarella and provolone and mozzarella and parmesan, as well as lite and fat free shredded mozzarella.

Here’s the best shredded mozzarella to buy at the grocery store.

Best Lite Mozzarella

I’m not going to say this lite shredded mozzarella was life-changing. But for a cheese that has 60% less fat than the standard mozzarella shredded cheese, it is pretty darn good. It actually still retains some flavor and some creaminess. You’re not going to be eating this by the handful, but you can and should sprinkle it onto a pasta bake or into a grilled cheese sandwich. — Justine Sterling

Credit: Liv Averett / Trader Joe’s

Rating:

6/10

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Best Fat Free Mozzarella

Shockingly, this is the only appearance Kraft makes on this list of the best shredded mozzarella cheese. But while the full-fat Kraft faltered, the brand’s fat free shredded mozzarella is pretty darn good. It’s not as creamy as a full-fat mozz, but it’s creamy enough (if you’re used to fat free cheese, you will be very pleased with the level of creaminess) and it has a tangy, slightly sharp flavor. So often, fat free cheese can be flavorless. Not Kraft! — Justine Sterling

Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart

Rating:

6.5/10

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Best Budget

There’s a special place in my heart for cheap, overly processed, shredded mozzarella—the good stuff is very salty and very stretchy. And Great Value makes the good stuff. The flavor isn’t that of good-quality cheese; it’s definitely got that processed cheese vibe. But shredded mozzarella is all about that melty stretchability, and this brings it. I think this is the best shredded mozzarella cheese for making cheap, filling meals for your family. Or, hey, it’s good for struggle meals, too. — Danny Palumbo

Credit: Paula Kunatee / Walmart

Rating:

7/10

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Best for a Quesadilla

Whole Foods’ low-moisture mozzarella cheese provides an amazing stretch when melted, and the flavor is great too. It melts great in the microwave, but it’s not exactly those thick ribbons of mozzarella cheese that you’ll see at the top of this list. The taste is really nice and creamy, which is why this would make an excellent, stretchy quesadilla cheese. If you shop at Whole Foods, you won’t be disappointed with this shredded mozzarella. There’s better options out there, but if it’s convenient for you, pick it up. — Danny Palumbo

Credit: Paula Kunatee / Amazon

Rating:

7.5/10

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Best Vegan

As far as vegan cheese goes, this was far and away the best of the bunch. Violife’s vegan shredded mozzarella tastes creamy, fatty, and milky—despite containing no milk whatsoever. There’s a mild-but-tangy cheddar quality to these shreds that I’m super into. Also, per my microwave research, this faux mozzarella melts incredibly well. You won’t get that Instagram-worthy stretch that you get from a good non-vegan shredded mozzarella cheese, but you’ll still achieve a desirable amount of meltability. I’d absolutely recommend using this on a vegan grilled cheese sandwich, or on a vegan baked ziti. — Danny Palumbo

Credit: Paula Kunatee / Instacart

Rating:

8/10

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Best Mozz and Provolone

This shredded mozzarella from Target tastes like shredded string cheese. It definitely has way more flavor than plain shredded mozzarella. And while the shreds are quite thin, that means it melts fast. I’ve started to use this shredded mozzarella blend for fast quesadillas for my kids or as a quick-melting cheese for scrambled eggs. You get the stretch and goo of mozzarella with a bit more richness and depth from provolone. — Justine Sterling

Credit: Liv Averett / Target

Rating:

8/10

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Best Salty

Sargento is salty and mellow like a good low-moisture mozzarella cheese should be, and it also melts incredibly well in the oven or the microwave, getting nice brownish crispy edges. The only thing that keeps it from breaking into the top three is there’s something a little dull about the flavor, and the texture is somewhat coarse and grainy. Sargento was the brand I used to often reach for at the supermarket, and they do provide a decent low-moisture cheese, but my go-to now is our number one best shredded mozzarella. But if you’re a Sargento loyalist or you can’t find the best of the best in your grocery store, this will do the job just fine, though, and you can rely on it for your melted cheese needs. — Danny Palumbo

Credit: Paula Kunatee / Instacart

Rating:

8/10

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Best Bold Flavor

This thick cut shredded mozzarella has an interesting flavor profile. Instead of being mellow and salty, this mozzarella almost tastes sweet, and there’s a bit of back end bitterness like a cheddar cheese. It’s got a little more saturated fat than our number one pick, and you can tell. This cheese is decadent and delicious, a great combination if you like your cheese to have a bold taste and texture. I’m partial to shredded mozzarella cheese that’s thick cut, and this is nice and thick. — Danny Palumbo

Credit: Paula Kunatee / Amazon

Rating:

8/10

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Best Mozzarella and Parm

I couldn’t stop snacking on this blend of shredded mozzarella cheese and parmesan. It has the savory umami quality of parmesan with the meltability of mozzarella. This is my new go-to for topping pasta. It would also be good sprinkled on top of homemade focaccia or even a Boboli-style pizza. It’s not the best shredded mozzarella cheese because we had to pick a cheese that was purely mozzarella, but it’s definitely something you should run out and try. — Justine Sterling

Credit: Liv Averett / Target

Rating:

8.5/10

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Best of the Best

Man, Tillamook rocks. I absolutely love how milky, creamy, and salty this cheese is. Plus, it comes in thick, coarsely cut mozzarella ribbons, not tiny-ass feeble strands that get stuck together in the bag. When melted, this low-moisture mozzarella oozes and stretches an X-rated amount, and the flavor is just incredible—deliciously rich and cheesy. I melted this on some baked ziti at home, and it was magical. The best thing about low-moisture mozzarella is that it stretches and melts perfectly, which is why it’s definitely the best shredded mozzarella cheese for baked pastas. Still, I would eat this straight out of the bag, put it on salad, a grilled cheese, a quesadilla, pizza, or even melted on some soup. — Danny Palumbo

Credit: Paula Kunatee / Tillamook

Rating:

9/10

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Other products we tried: Kraft, Happy Belly, Good & Gather, Daiya Mozzarella Shreds, Kroger, Simple Truth Plant Based Shredded Mozzarella, So Delicious, Simple Truth Organic, Trader Joe’s, Galbani, Kraft Creamy Melt Mozzarella with Philadelphia, Lucerene Mozzarella & Provolone, Great Value Provolone & Mozzarella Blend, Good Planet Foods Mozzarella Style Olive Oil Cheese Shreds, Great Value Fat Free Shredded Mozzarella

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