Cream cheese is a soft, usually mild-tasting fresh cheese made from milk and cream. Cream cheese is not naturally matured and is meant to be consumed fresh, so it differs from other soft cheeses, such as Brie and Neufchâtel. It is more comparable in taste, texture, and production methods to Boursin and mascarpone. Stabilizers, such as carob bean gum and carrageenan, are often added in industrial production. It can also come in several flavors.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration defines cream cheese as containing at least 33% milk fat with a moisture content of not more than 55%, and a pH range of 4.4 to 4.9. Similarly, under Canadian Food and Drug Regulations, cream cheese must contain at least 30% milk fat and a maximum of 55% moisture. In other countries, it is defined differently and may need a considerably higher fat content.

Cream cheese originated in the United States in the 1870s.

Around 1873, William A. Lawrence, a dairyman in Chester, New York, was the first to mass produce an unripened fresh cheese known generically as cream cheese. In 1872, he began manufacturing a Neufchâtel cheese style. By adding cream to the process, he developed a richer cheese that he called "cream cheese". In 1877, Lawrence created the first brand of cream cheese; its logo was a silhouette of a cow followed by the words "Neufchatel & Cream Cheese".

In 1879, to build a larger factory, Lawrence entered into an arrangement with Samuel S. Durland, another Chester merchant. In 1880, Alvah Reynolds, a New York cheese distributor, began to sell the cheese of Lawrence & Durland and called it "Philadelphia Cream Cheese". Histories that imply the cheese was produced in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or Philadelphia, New York, are incorrect. By the end of 1880, faced with increasing demand for his Philadelphia-brand cheese, Reynolds turned to Charles Green, a second Chester dairyman, who by 1880 had been manufacturing cream cheese as well. Some of Green's cheese was also sold under the Philadelphia label.

In 1892, Reynolds bought the Empire Cheese Co. of South Edmeston, New York, to produce cheese under his "Philadelphia" label. When the Empire factory burned down in 1900, he asked the newly formed Phenix Cheese Company to produce his cheese, instead. In 1903, Reynolds sold rights to the "Philadelphia" brand name to the Phenix Cheese Company, which was under the direction of Jason F. Whitney, Sr. (which later merged with Kraft, in 1928). By the early 1880s, Star cream cheese had emerged as Lawrence & Durland's brand, and Green made World and Globe brands of the cheese. At the turn of the 20th century, New York dairymen were producing cream cheese sold under such other brands as Triple Cream (C. Percival), Eagle (F.X. Baumert), Empire (Phenix Cheese Co.), Mohican (International Cheese Co.), Monroe Cheese Co. (Gross & Hoffman), and Nabob (F.H. Legget).

Cream cheese is common in the Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine of New York City. It is the basis of the bagel and cream cheese, an open-faced sandwich. Lox, capers, and other ingredients may be added.

Normally, protein molecules in milk have a negative surface charge, which keeps milk in a liquid state; the molecules act as surfactants, forming micelles around the particles of fat and keeping them in emulsion. Lactic acid bacteria are added to pasteurized and homogenized milk. During the fermentation around 22 °C (72 °F), the pH of the blend decreases (acidifies). Amino acids at the surface of the proteins begin losing charge and become neutral, turning the fat micelles from hydrophilic to hydrophobic state and causing the liquid to coagulate. If the bacteria are left in the milk too long, the pH lowers further, the micelles attain a positive charge, and the mixture returns to liquid form. The key, then, is to kill the bacteria by heating the mixture to 52–63 °C (126–145 °F)^{[citation needed]} at the moment the cheese is at the isoelectric point, meaning the state at which half the ionizable surface amino acids of the proteins are positively charged and half are negative.^{[citation needed]}