A little high-quality cheese can go a long way

Say "cheese," please.

I love cheese; good cheese. At a natural food store where I shop, the cheese counter overflows with cheeses from all over the world. However, I rarely buy cheese there since a pound of any one would take too big a bite out of my wallet.

Striving to stick to a grocery budget, I head to the supermarket for reduced-fat cheeses and find my favorite: Kraft's Cracker Barrel 2 percent milk extra-sharp cheddar. It works fine as a snack cheese with fruit, as well as in macaroni and cheese. If you've made my Most-Excellent Macaroni and Cheese (available in the Daily Herald recipe archive) you know this cheese works melts smoothly and delivers big flavor.

If I can find it, farmer-owned Cabot 50 percent sharp cheddar cheese makes a good substitute for full-fat, higher calorie cheddar. The Vermont cheese maker has won numerous awards for high quality and Cook's Illustrated magazine selected this cheese, along with Kraft's 2 percent, as the best of the reduced-fat cheeses.

Fat-free cheese appeared at stores almost 20 years ago, but back then it was awful. Over the years, Kraft and Borden have made great strides in improving flavor of their fat-free cheese. Borden's sharp, nonfat process cheese product tastes good (it's a little higher in sodium than Kraft), melts well and works in a macaroni and cheese or on a sandwich. At 30 calories a slice, compared to 50 calories for its 2 percent cheese and 70 calories for regular American slices, it's decent a lean bargain.

A microplane rasp grater is my tool of choice for grating hard cheeses. Microplanes produce such light, almost feathery shreds that 1 ounce can measure out at ¾ cup, versus a standard shred that comes up at ½ cup and it melts faster and more evenly.

If you delight in turning a Greek salad into a meal, then you like feta cheese. Feta's a sheep and goat's milk, brine-cured (salt water) cheese with a strong, salty flavor that contains slightly less fat (about 6 grams per ounce) than other cheeses. Trader Joe's sells a light feta with just 1.5 fat grams per ounce that's got a decent flavor and texture.

Yet right now, there's no reduced-fat, lower-calorie substitute for parmesan or Romano cheeses, which is why I'll cough up the extra dough for imported Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Romano cheeses. It's worth the money for the extra flavor impact. Pecorino's made from sheep's milk, where Parmigiano-Reggiano's made from cow's milk. Both cheeses deliver about the same amount of fat (around 8 grams per ounce), but with such big flavor notes, I can use less and still savor their flavors.

Even though I've lost 165 pounds and kept it off for a year-and-a-half, a variety of cheeses remain on my menu and yet I still end up with a big smile on weigh day. If you're a savvy shopper and clever cook, so can you.

At one time I made a fettuccine Alfredo with Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Romano cheese, as well as heavy whipping cream, butter and if that's not sufficiently decadent; egg yolks. Using Cook's Illustrated as my inspiration, I created a healthier Alfredo that holds the fat to 33 percent of calories.

• Don Mauer welcomes questions and recipe makevoers requests. Write him at don@theleanwizard.com.