Peppermint oil in cheese: flavour, storage and lab measures
What it found
Cheese flavoured with peppermint oil scored higher for flavour, body and texture than plain cheese, and held up through storage.
The oil's main volatile compound was menthol.
What they found
Main oil compounds
The main volatile compounds in the peppermint oil were menthol (37.62%), menthone (20.98%), carvone (11.76%), dihydro carveol acetate (11.23%), cineol (5.89%), beta-caryophyllene (2.94%), limonene (2.78%) and iso-menthone (2.39%).
Oil antioxidant measures
The peppermint oil had an antioxidant activity of 56.03% and a total phenolic content of 0.299 mg/ml.
Sensory scores
During storage, the flavour, body and texture of the peppermint-flavoured cheeses scored higher than plain cheese. Appearance did not differ significantly between plain and flavoured cheeses.
Chemical composition
There were no significant differences in the chemical composition of plain and peppermint-flavoured cheeses.
TVFA and SN
Plain cheese had significantly lower TVFA and SN than the peppermint cheeses at 60, 80 and 100 ppm during storage.
Storage life
The peppermint-flavoured cheese survived without any defects until the end of the cheese storage period.
What the authors conclude
“Peppermint-flavored cheese was more accepted than plain cheese and survived without any defects until the end of the cheese storage period.”
Also in their conclusions
- They say hydro-distillation of Egyptian peppermint leaves revealed many volatile compounds and antioxidant activity in the resulting essential oil.
- They suggest that peppermint oil in cheese, which raised TVFA and SN compared with plain cheese, may offer a novel flavoured cheese with desirable multifunctional health effects in humans.
- They report that peppermint-flavoured cheese was more accepted than plain cheese and lasted without defects until the end of storage.
How it was done
The authors wanted to make a new, appealing cheese using a low level of natural peppermint essential oil, and to look at the oil's volatile makeup, total phenolic content and antioxidant activity.
They extracted peppermint essential oil from fresh Egyptian peppermint leaves by hydro-distillation and identified its volatile compounds with GC-MS. They made cheeses with 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 ppm of the oil plus a plain cheese, then tested them for sensory, chemical and rheological properties during storage at 5 degrees C.
What it can’t tell you
- We summarised it from the abstract only.
- The health effects in humans are suggested by the authors but were not measured in this study.
- The study tested cheese properties in the lab and with sensory panels, so it cannot show what eating this cheese does in the body.
Who paid
- Authors work at
- National Research Centre, Egypt
The paper
- Title
- Natural peppermint-flavored cheese
- Type
- Study
- Summarised from
- Abstract only
- Cite
- Ibrahim OAE, Mohamed AG, Bahgaat WK (2019). Natural peppermint-flavored cheese. Acta scientiarum polonorum. Technologia alimentaria. doi:10.17306/J.AFS.0607PubMed 30927754DOI
Summary written 26 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error