Cheese or a cheese base is produced by concentrating milk, increasing the ionic strength of the resultant concentrate sufficient to maintain it in the liquid state during and after subsequent fermentation, fermenting the concentrate and removing water from the fermented concentrate such as by evaporation to produce cheese or cheese base containing substantially all the casein and whey proteins originally present in the milk. The fermented concentrate is preferably preheated before water removal to prevent phase separation and burn-on during water removal, and to reduce viscosity of the resultant product. A non-toxic salt such as sodium chloride may be added to increase the ionic strength. This process permits efficient removal of water from the fermented concentrate since the concentrate does not coagulate during fermentation, and the process avoids the possibility of losing whey proteins by totally eleminating syneresis.