Petit Suisse substitute

Best substitute

Fromage frais or fromage blanc with a little cream

Use ½ cup petit suisse for every ½ cup fromage frais + 1 tablespoon cream

Best for French and Spanish desserts

Close match

Structurally the same family of drained fresh cheese, and the spoon of cream accounts for the fact that petit suisse is cream-enriched and therefore richer and less tangy. Used plain, fromage frais on its own is slightly leaner and sharper but still very close.

Other petit suisse substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Full-fat quark
Different texture
Use the same amount loosened with 1 teaspoon milk per ¼ cup if stiff
Thick, mild and unsalted, which makes it a good fit.
What changes
It is drier and slightly more granular than petit suisse, and marginally more sour, so a mousse made with it feels a shade less silky and needs a good beating or a short blitz to get properly smooth.
Best for
baked cheesecakes, dessert creams and mousses, sweet tarts, pancake and cake batters
Quark sold as a firm block needs more thinning than the tub kind. Add milk a teaspoon at a time until it drops softly off a spoon.
3Whipped cream cheese thinned with milk
Taste and texture differ
Use 1 cup petit suisse for every ¾ cup whipped cream cheese + 2-3 tablespoons milk
The most available option in an American supermarket and the one with the biggest catch: cream cheese is salted and petit suisse is not, so a delicate fruit dessert made with it tastes faintly savory unless you compensate.
What changes
It is also denser and coats the mouth more, so the result eats like a cheesecake filling rather than a light fresh cheese.
Best for
cheesecakes and tart fillings, thick dessert creams, frostings
Choose the whipped tub style over foil-wrapped block, which contains stabilizers that keep it stiff and gluey even after thinning. Reduce or omit added salt in the recipe.
4Mascarpone loosened with plain yogurt
Different taste
Use 1 cup petit suisse for every ⅔ cup mascarpone + ⅓ cup plain yogurt
A good dessert-focused approximation.
What changes
Mascarpone matches and slightly exceeds petit suisse's richness, and the yogurt thins it and adds the small amount of lactic tang mascarpone entirely lacks. On its own mascarpone is too sweet-tasting and too heavy to pass as petit suisse.
Best for
dessert mousses and creams, piped fillings, layered desserts, sweet dips for fruit
Fold rather than whisk hard. Mascarpone breaks into grains when over-beaten and cannot be brought back.
5Whole-milk ricotta blended smooth with cream
Different taste
1 cup ricotta + 2 tablespoons cream, blended 30 seconds
Ricotta straight from the tub is grainy and wrong, but blended it turns silky and becomes a fair match: mild, unsalted-tasting, faintly sweet.
What changes
What it does not have is any real sourness, so an unsweetened savory application tastes flatter and needs a squeeze of lemon.
Best for
baked desserts and cheesecakes, sweet fillings, dessert creams, pastry fillings
Drain wet ricotta in a sieve for 20 minutes first, or the loose whey will thin your mixture as it stands.
6Full-fat Greek yogurt (leanest option)
Different taste
Use the same amount
Right consistency, wrong balance.
What changes
Greek yogurt is markedly more sour and much lower in fat than petit suisse, so a dessert made with it reads as tangy yogurt rather than as mild fresh cheese, and it can weep liquid if it sits overnight. Stirring in a tablespoon of cream per half cup helps considerably.
Best for
quick no-bake desserts, fruit toppings, lighter versions of rich recipes
Do not use nonfat, which is both sharper and chalky. Strain it for an hour if the recipe needs to hold a shape.

What is Petit Suisse?

Petit Suisse is a very soft, unsalted French fresh cheese enriched with cream and sold in small pots, thick enough to eat with a spoon and much milder than cream cheese.

Cooking tips

Petit suisse is doing the job of rich creamy body plus a very gentle lactic tang, with no salt to speak of. When you substitute, check all three: cream cheese brings salt you must subtract, yogurt brings acidity you must temper with cream, and mascarpone brings richness but no tang at all.
The absence of salt is the detail most substitutions get wrong. If you use cream cheese, mascarpone or shop-bought labneh in a recipe written around petit suisse, taste the mixture and cut or drop any salt the recipe adds separately.
It will not whip to stiff peaks. To lighten a mousse, whip a little cream on its own and fold it into the cheese rather than trying to aerate the cheese, which just makes it looser.
Never boil it or any fresh-cheese substitute. There is enough fat to survive gentle warming but not a simmer, so stir it into hot sauces off the heat and serve straight away.
Petit suisse and all its substitutes lose liquid when they sit, especially once sugar has been added. Assemble tarts and layered desserts near serving time, or drain the cheese in a sieve for half an hour first so there is less free whey to escape.

Frequently asked questions

What is petit suisse?

A French fresh cheese, petits suisses in the plural, made from cultured milk enriched with cream, drained but not aged or salted. It comes in small pots, is thick enough to eat with a spoon, and tastes mild and creamy with only a whisper of tang. Recipes use it much as they would a rich fromage frais.

What is the closest substitute for petit suisse?

Fromage frais or fromage blanc with a tablespoon of cream stirred into each half cup, since that is essentially how petit suisse is built. Full-fat quark is the next best and swaps 1:1. In an American supermarket, whipped cream cheese thinned with milk is the practical choice, with the salt in the recipe reduced to account for it.

Can I use cream cheese instead of petit suisse?

Yes, with two adjustments. Thin it, about 3/4 cup cream cheese beaten with 2 to 3 tablespoons of milk per cup needed, and reduce the salt elsewhere, because cream cheese is salted and petit suisse is not. Expect a denser, richer result that coats the mouth more than the original does.

Can I just leave petit suisse out of a recipe?

Usually not, because it is normally the creamy base rather than a flavoring, in a mousse, a cheesecake or a fruit dessert it is providing the structure. If you have no fresh cheese at all, lightly whipped cream with a squeeze of lemon juice is the nearest improvisation, and the dish will come out considerably richer and less stable.

Is petit suisse the same as fromage frais?

They are close relatives. Both are unaged drained fresh cheeses, but petit suisse is cream-enriched, so it is richer, thicker and milder, while plain fromage frais is often quite lean and slightly tarter. Adding a spoon of cream to fromage frais bridges the gap in either direction.

Related substitutes

More cheese substitutes

Petit Suisse substitute

Other petit suisse substitutes

2Full-fat quark

3Whipped cream cheese thinned with milk

4Mascarpone loosened with plain yogurt

5Whole-milk ricotta blended smooth with cream

6Full-fat Greek yogurt (leanest option)