Dairy
Port Salut
Port Salut is a semi-soft cow’s-milk cheese with a smooth, elastic paste and a distinctive orange washed or coloured rind. Flavour is mild, creamy, and lightly tangy, with only a gentle aroma compared with stronger French washed-rind cheeses; the interior stays pale and sliceable at refrigerator temperature and softens at room temperature. Originally a Trappist monastery cheese from Brittany, it became a widely branded industrial style sold internationally. It is used as a table and sandwich cheese and melts cleanly in cooking.
Track this ingredient
Characteristics
Preparations
Traits
Grading systems
Grades are placed along a shared scale so systems can be compared side by side.
History
Trappist monks at the Abbey of Notre-Dame du Port-du-Salut in Entrammes developed a mild washed-rind cow’s-milk cheese.
Commercial rights and wider production spread the Port-Salut name beyond the monastery.
Industrial dairies standardised the orange-rind disc for national French retail.
Brand consolidation made Port Salut a mass-market mild semi-soft cheese in France and export markets.
Global supermarket distribution kept Port Salut as an approachable French-style washed-rind table cheese.