12 May CHEESES – WHEN WAITING IS REQUIRED

Do I need to wait
six hours before I
can eat meat after
having eaten pizza?
What about after

eating eggplant parmesan?
Pizza is typically made with mozzarella
cheese, which is aged for only one month
and is not pungent. This is not considered
a hard cheese, so there is no need to wait
6 hours.
Parmesan, however, is an aged cheese.
The Yad Yehuda (89:30) maintains that
one need not wait before meat after eating

aged cheese that has been melted and
mixed into a cooked food, such that the
cheese is no longer noticeable. Although if
meat is dissolved and mixed into another
food, one must still wait 6 hours before
eating dairy, being that the custom to wait
after hard cheese is only a midos chasidus
(exemplary behavior) and not an absolute
requirement, in this case one may be
lenient. The OU’s poskim have said that
one may rely on this opinion. Therefore,
if the pizza or eggplant parmesan is made
with a combination of aged and non-aged
cheeses, if the cheeses all melt together
and are not independently noticeable, the

leniency of the Yad Yehuda would apply,
and one would not need to wait. However,
if a pizza or eggplant parmesan was made
exclusively with parmesan cheese, then
one who eats this would need to wait.
As always, after eating any dairy food,
even if the food is not made with aged
cheese, one needs to clean and rinse
his mouth and wash his hands before
eating meat (Shulchan Aruch YD 89:2).
Additionally, some have the custom to
wait half an hour or an hour after all
dairy before meat (Hagahos HaGra Y.D.
89:6 quoting Zohar).