The Protein-Packed Food That Disappeared From Diner Menus

The diner is an American institution that came into being in the U.S., and in many ways served to define the country's cuisine — at least at a certain point in culinary history. These days, there are still plenty of good diners in the U.S., though not nearly as many as there once were. And while the menus at these establishments do tend to lean retro, the food is a significant part of what defines a diner, after all, the dishes on offer have changed considerably over time. Any diner worth its chrome trim still has a menu loaded with American comfort food classics, but many trends from the heyday of this sort of establishment have been left in the past, and cottage cheese is certainly one of them.

These days, spotting cottage cheese on the menu of just about any restaurant would be quite unusual, but there was a time when it was an absolute staple. Around the 1950s, folks in the U.S. started taking a serious interest in slimming down, and so-called "diet plates" became a favorite meal in homes and restaurants for decades. These dishes often included cottage cheese as a low-calorie protein source, alongside various fruits and other items. Looking at a 1975 menu from Denny's, the "Lean and Low" section features plates like the "Slender Steak," a top sirloin with cottage cheese, tomato wedges, and egg slices; the "Low-Cal," a beef patty on rye bread with the same accoutrements; and "Peaches and Cottage Cheese," two peach halves with cottage cheese served on lettuce with rye wafers for just 227 calories.

This humble dairy product has had its ups and downs over time. Cottage cheese got its name, like you might expect, as a simple cheese to make in cottages and farms back before home refrigeration changed the milk game. It was a simple food that wasn't really en vogue until the mid-20th century diet frenzy hit, and eventually that fad also passed as we turned our collective attention to yogurt instead. For a while, cottage cheese might've been considered a vanished old-school diner food, but now it is once again on the bounce and headed back to our plates — though not in quite the same form.

In the age of social media, cottage cheese has made a startling rebound, with viral recipes leading to actual shortages of this low-calorie dairy product. But these recipes are not the two-ingredient cottage cheese snacks of years past. Scrolling through short-form food videos on your preferred social media platform, you can watch intrepid cooks turn cottage cheese into everything from sandwich bread to chocolate mousse. The driver now is the same as it was back in the days of peach halves and cottage cheese. These recipes are focused on adding protein and keeping calories down, but they have certainly broken new ground. Before the age of TikTok, would anyone have had the audacity to make banana cream pie ice cream out of cottage cheese?

You likely won't see this diet dairy dish crop back up on the menu at your local greasy spoon, but those on social media are deep in a cottage cheese renaissance. Smoothies, pancakes, brownies — there may be no end to the unexpected uses for cottage cheese that these clever cooks come up with.