To ask if I can use cheddar cheese 5 days past Best Before date?

[Butterfly98]

Just that really! I was planning on making macaroni cheese for dinner this evening when I realised just now that the block of cheddar I bought on Saturday was obviously past its best then but was still on the TESCO shelf at full price for shoppers! That will teach me to look at the best before dates from now on! I'm not going to use the full block though and I haven't got time to go back with it today....

I have a family member who buys cheddar and leaves it in the back of the fridge to go at least 6 months out of date, to be more mature when he eats it! Unless it's soft cheese or been kept somewhere warm I think it's pretty much impossible for cheese to go off!

The only thing I actually look at use buy dates is meat and fish. Everything else goes by the look/smell test. Occasionally if a pack of mozzarella looks like its about to burst I might look at the date but would still check it (and most likely use it if it didnt smell offensive)

We use our bread bin, but then we buy the fresh bakery bread rather than the 'plastic bread' so ours would go off and hard really quickly out of the bread bin.

For the crackers etc, put then in a container rather than just a loose open packet and they should keep longer. I think you can even buy containers that suck the air out to keep them fresher longer.

For the cheese, look at it. As long as it smells and looks okay go for it. If I was concerned, I would just cut off and bin a thin slice from the end and use it as normal. I had a friend who used to work on the cheese counter in a supermarket and back then used to have the big blocks and just cut the mould off and keep selling the block. Not sure if they still do that though.

It doesn't even register to look at dates on cheese, bread, milk, yoghurt, fruit or veg.

God yes! I’d still be grating it into pasta 2 months further down the line.

Block cheese, yes. Pre grated, no.