7 Best Pepper Jack Cheese Options

Jack cheese is a semi-hard style of cheese that originated in America. It is usually pale white in color and usually made from the milk of cows. It tends to come in either softer varieties that are not aged much longer than a month, and “dry” jacks which are more crumbly due to being aged for six months.

Jack cheese becomes pepper jack cheese when pepper flakes are added to the jack. This distinctive kick gives pepper jack that taste we all love. Pepper jack can be made with chili peppers, bell peppers, and various herbs. Some varieties even include pesto and garlic.

Because jack cheeses are so mild in flavor, they are often marbled with other cheeses to create entirely new flavor profiles. Jack marbled with Cheddar is called Cheddar Jack, and it benefits from both the sharpness of the yellow cheese and the creaminess of the white. Likewise, Jack marbled with Colby cheese creates Colby Jack also known as Co-Jack.

Beyond marbling, Jack cheese can be further modified by allowing it to age for around six months. At this point, it becomes a type of grating cheese that can serve as a replacement for parmesan. This type of cheese has become known as Dry Jack. It was actually invented in San Francisco in 1915 when a cheese wholesaler forgot an order of jack in a warehouse only to discover it several months later. Upon his discovery of the now significantly dry cheese, he found it still tasted great and grated great as well!

The full name of Jack cheese is Monterey Jack cheese (not to be confused with Monterrey Jack, which is an incorrect spelling resulting from confusion over the city in Mexico). The cheese was first made by Franciscan friars in Monterey, California. The city lent the first part of its name to the cheese, but the “Jack” came from the businessman who sold the friars’ cheese to the laity. This man was named David Jack and his cheese quickly became known as “Jack’s cheese” then “Monterey Jack cheese” and now just “Jack cheese” (no possessive).

It is unknown exactly how the Pepper Jack variety was created, but local Texas legend suggests that it was created when a husband and wife were preparing dinner together. The husband was melting cheese while the wife was cutting up peppers. One bumped the other, the two dishes merged, and history was made.

You can most likely find Pepper Jack at your local grocery store or fromagerie. If you live around Alta, California, or other dairy centers in America, you might even be able to find some local farmer’s markets selling farm fresh Jack. However, we know many of our readers are citizens of the internet, and for their convenience, all the cheeses we have listed can be purchased off of Amazon.

Folk wisdom suggests the people who suffer from migraines might prevent them by eating types of Jack cheese. While it is not true that Jack serves as a migraine cure, it is true that most cheeses contain tyramine, an organic compound associated with headaches. Jack contains a relatively low amount of tyramine, meaning that if tyramine triggers your migraines then Jack may provide you with a way to eat cheese without your skull punishing you later.