Abstract:Monascus cheese was prepared with fresh milk and monascus as raw materials. Taking sensory evaluation as the evaluation criterion，the processing technology of monascus cheese was optimized through a response surface experiment following single‐factor test. The experimental results showed that the optimal pro‐cessing parameters for monascus cheese were as follows：monascus addition of 0.15 g/L，starter culture addition of 3 g/L，calcium chloride addition of 0.15 g/L，and rennet addition of 0.16 g/L.Under these conditions，the pro‐duced monascus cheese exhibited a light pink color，a rich milky flavor，a delicate texture，and a moderate firm‐ness，and contained 23.0 g of protein，21.0 g of fat，and 792 mg of calcium per 100 g. In terms of antioxidant properties，cheese with monascus exhibited a DPPH radical scavenging rate of 35.0% and a hydroxyl radical scavenging rate of 36.5%，both of which were higher than those of cheese without monascus.