This TikTok ‘Cottage Cheese Wrap’ Recipe Is Bad, Actually

There’s a viral cottage cheese wrap making its method across the web and it’s being touted as a high-protein bread alternative for sandwiches and wraps. Effectively, I really like cottage cheese and I do love a sandwich, so how unhealthy may or not it’s? Effectively, people, it’s not nice. 

I don’t know if I’m shocked that the web misled me, or simply disenchanted. I’m a type of weirdos that really actually likes cottage cheese—the 4% fats selection, in fact. It’s one among my go-to heat climate snacks when paired with contemporary fruits, so I used to be keen to purchase my first tub of the season and revel in it on this new software. It is not bizarre to try to pack within the protein and cut back carbs, however this creation actually falls brief. Not solely does the wrap alternative suck in a sensible sense, however I really suppose it messes up the cottage cheese taste too. 

What’s the viral cottage cheese wrap?

The principle thought appears to be you could mix cottage cheese with some egg elements to make a unfastened batter of types. Unfold the combination in a flat rectangle on a sheet tray and bake it within the oven. Et voilà: An ideal, high-protein, gluten-free wrap you could pack with many leafy greens, chilly cuts, and perhaps much more cottage cheese. There are a lot of variations of this cottage cheese wrap together with this one which solely makes use of egg whites, this one which makes use of complete eggs, one that fries it all in a pan as an alternative of baking it within the oven, and I even got here throughout one other that makes use of flour (which I can’t discover for the time being)—so what precisely are we doing, then? 

On TikTok, this course of takes 12 seconds from mix to chunk. What you don’t see is how rattling lengthy it takes to bake, and fairly frankly, the way you really must over-bake it for this to work in any respect. Throw out every thing you already know about cooking eggs with this “wrap.” Egg whites start to set at 140°F, which is normally what we goal for as a result of the proteins construct tender bonds you could simply break with a fork or together with your tooth. 

The bread alternative, nonetheless, requires the proteins within the eggs to cook dinner at excessive temperatures—some recipes instruct for 400°F—and type many robust, rubbery bonds. You understand how generally if you fry an egg for a couple of minutes too lengthy, and the sides of the white flip crispy and brown, and also you battle to interrupt it even with a fork? Yep, that’s what’s required right here. The high-moisture cottage cheese within the combination interrupts a number of the egg’s bonds, so those which can be connecting must cook dinner till browning, or else the entire thing falls aside right into a mushy, and fairly unappealing, mess. 

The uneven outcomes

I really don’t also have a downside with cooking the “bread” till browning. Eggs are an extremely versatile ingredient, and when you can cook dinner them till they’re chewy sufficient to imitate bread, effectively, what great innovation! I take challenge with the wrap in observe.

The batter appears to be like clean and promising earlier than baking.
Credit score: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

I noticed a number of TikTok movies that appear to have run into the identical downside I did—my layer of cheese-egg batter unfold out within the oven and have become uneven. (That is nearly assured to occur you probably have sheet pans that warp beneath increased temperatures.) The skinny facet burned and the thicker facet was okay.

My batter creeped over to 1 facet and a part of it died.
Credit score: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

The burnt and crispy part broke off after I tried to fill the wrap, and the thicker part was versatile however borderline mushy in elements. I ate half of it, generously provided the opposite half to my boyfriend (he declined), and tossed the opposite half. 

The second time I attempted it with complete eggs as an alternative of simply egg whites, and the flavour improved barely. Nonetheless, I nonetheless encountered the identical points with irregular cooking—burnt sections and mushy spots. In the event you selected to make this high-protein “bread,” I might advocate a recipe with complete eggs, and ditching a sheet pan to make use of a parchment-lined casserole dish as an alternative. Then you definitely don’t should cope with warping. That mentioned, I gained’t be making this once more. 

Make these high-protein choices as an alternative

Baking one thing for 35 to 45 minutes to get a product you would possibly very effectively chuck is just about my definition of not value it. You’re higher off conserving it quick, easy, and—most of all—scrumptious. Make a stunning, fluffy omelette with some cottage cheese inside, or a frittata (which is an omelette for lazy people) which solely takes about 10 minutes within the oven. These choices are additionally high-protein and gluten-free, and you’ll fill them with veggies and meats too. In the event you should have a wrap, attempt pan-frying some plain ol’ egg whites, like with these dumpling wrappers, however use a bigger pan. It’s method sooner (we’re speaking one to 2 minutes per wrap), about as high-protein and low-fat as you may get, plus you don’t should bake these to hell and again simply in order that they’ll maintain some ham. Glad bulking, everybody.