Why You Might Want To Think Twice About Eating Gruyere Cheese

There's no denying Gruyere tastes great. The Swiss-originated cheese is slightly sweet, slightly salty, and works in an array of delicious comfort foods. As one HuffPost article stated, if you need a comfort food, you need a Gruyere recipe (and the article isn't wrong, as it proves by listing out some truly tempting and mouthwatering recipes for cozy dishes such as Gruyere fondue, Gruyere gratin, and Gruyere galettes).

However, despite its yum factor, Gruyere, like so many comfort foods, comes with some unfortunate facts. An ounce of Gruyere, or about a slice, includes approximately 117 calories and nine grams of fat. Since most recipes call for much more than one slice of cheese, anytime you add Gruyere to your dish, you're adding a lot of calories and a lot of fat. In fact, just one slice of Gruyere is more than ten percent of your daily fat allowance and about 25 percent of your daily saturated fat allotment.

When you look at the other cheeses available to you, you can opt for a host of other cheeses with fewer calories per ounce, including Swiss, bleu, brie, mozzarella, and feta. If you're looking at fat content, you could likewise do better sticking with mozzarella, feta, or goat cheese.

There are many reasons why you might want to avoid Gruyere on your next cheese plate. Not only is it not that heart-healthy, but it can also be on the pricey side and not easily available at every big box grocery store. If you're looking to swap out your Gruyere for another similar cheese for use in a recipe, though, you'll want to tread lightly. Not just any cheese is a suitable replacement, especially when you're dealing with a flavor profile as distinct as Gruyere's.

Some of the best Gruyere substitutes include Emmental, Comte, Jarlsberg, and Beaufort, but those aren't always easily accessible either. Emmental does have fewer calories and fat per slice than Gruyere, as do Jarlsberg and Beaufort, though just barely.

If you're looking for a more heart-healthy, more affordable, and more easily accessible Gruyere replacement, try a simple Americanized Swiss cheese. With fewer calories per ounce, you can swap Swiss with Gruyere in most recipes, especially if you purchase a variety with lots of moisture that melts easily.