Can I eat burrata while pregnant?

The verdict

Pasteurised burrata is safe to eat cold in the UK, Ireland and the United States. The NHS names burrata explicitly on its list of pasteurised soft cheeses that are safe in pregnancy, alongside cottage cheese, cream cheese, mozzarella, feta, paneer, ricotta, mascarpone, halloumi and rindless goats' cheese.

That is worth knowing because burrata looks like the sort of cheese that would be restricted. It is soft, white, wet and Italian, and it turns up on restaurant menus next to things that are restricted. It is not on the avoid list, and it is not a mould-ripened cheese.

Australia and New Zealand are stricter. FSANZ places soft, semi-soft and surface-ripened cheeses in its higher-risk table as a category, so burrata falls in with brie, camembert, mozzarella, ricotta, feta and blue, and the safer alternatives are hard cheeses, pasteurised cream cheese, plain cottage cheese, or soft cheese baked to an internal 75C.

What burrata actually is

Burrata is mozzarella with a filling. The outer shell is a pouch of pasta filata curd, stretched in hot water exactly like mozzarella, and inside is stracciatella: shreds of the same curd mixed with cream.

That construction explains both halves of the answer. It is not ripened, has no rind and no surface mould, which is why the NHS treats it like mozzarella rather than like brie. And it is very wet, low in salt, and full of fresh cream, which is why it has a shelf life measured in days rather than weeks.

Traditional burrata from Puglia is often made and eaten within twenty-four hours. Supermarket burrata is pasteurised and has a use-by date usually a week or so out. Artisan burrata from a specialist counter may be neither.

Checking the label

Look for pasteurised in the ingredients and read the use-by date rather than a best-before. Use-by dates are safety dates: the FSA's advice is to always eat, cook or freeze food by its use-by date, because food after that date may look and smell fine but could still make you ill, and you cannot see, smell or taste the bacteria that cause foodborne illness.

Imported artisan burrata sold loose, unwrapped, or from a deli counter is the version to be cautious about. FSANZ's cheese precaution is specifically to purchase cheeses packaged by the manufacturer and to store them in the fridge, and that is sound advice regardless of which country's rules you are following.

Why the date matters more than with other cheeses

Listeria grows at refrigerator temperature. That single fact is why chilled ready-to-eat food gets so much attention in pregnancy advice, and it is why the FSA tells people to keep the fridge below 5C, refrigerate food as soon as possible after buying it, eat ready-to-eat foods within four hours of taking them out of the fridge, or two hours on a very warm day, and never eat past the use-by date.

Burrata is close to a worst case for cold storage: high moisture, low acid once the cream is in, and low salt. A cheese that is fine on day two of its life is a different proposition on day eight, or after an afternoon on a warm counter, and unlike a hard cheese it gives no visual warning.

So the practical rules for burrata are stricter than the headline verdict suggests. Buy it sealed. Get it into a cold fridge quickly. Eat it on the day you open it. Do not eat it if it has been sitting out at a party, on a grazing board, or on a restaurant buffet.

Burrata in restaurants

A restaurant burrata dish is usually served at room temperature by design, because cold blunts the flavour. That is a reasonable culinary decision and a slightly less reasonable one in pregnancy, since it means the cheese has been out of refrigeration before it reaches you and you have no way of knowing for how long.

You have three options and none of them is unreasonable. Ask for it straight from the fridge. Choose a dish where the burrata is cooked, for example torn over a pizza that then goes back into the oven, or baked into a pasta. Or order something else and have burrata at home where you control the fridge.

Cooked burrata is safe everywhere. The NHS lists any cheese cooked until steaming hot, including soft or blue cheese, as safe, and FSANZ specifies an internal 75C for baked soft cheese.

If you have already eaten some

Pasteurised burrata within its date is within guidance in the UK, Ireland and the US, so there is nothing to do.

If it was unpasteurised, past its use-by date, or served warm from a buffet, the risk is still low. Listeriosis is a rare illness even among people who eat higher-risk food. NHS advice on foods that should have been avoided is that a small amount, if you did not become ill, is unlikely to affect your baby.

The reason to know is the long incubation. ACOG notes symptoms may appear as late as two months after eating contaminated food, and describes mild flu-like symptoms such as fever, chills, muscle aches and diarrhoea, progressing in serious cases to stiff neck, headache, confusion and loss of balance. If any of that appears, contact your midwife or GP the same day and say what you ate and when. Listeriosis is diagnosed on a blood culture and treated with antibiotics, and prompt treatment is what protects the pregnancy.

Where guidance genuinely differs

Two systems, two answers, same cheese. The UK asks whether the cheese has a mould rind and whether the milk was pasteurised; burrata answers no and yes, so it is named as safe. Ireland's avoid list names unpasteurised dairy, mould-ripened cheeses and blue cheeses, none of which describes pasteurised burrata. The US restricts raw-milk cheeses and queso fresco-type cheeses, and burrata is neither.

Australia and New Zealand ask whether the cheese is soft, and stop there. Under FSANZ advice burrata belongs with the higher-risk group, and the recommendation is to choose a hard cheese or pasteurised cream cheese instead, or to bake it.

Where all four agree is on handling. Buy it packaged, keep it cold, eat it fresh. With burrata specifically, that advice does more work than the classification argument does.