Process design of a waterless single screw extrusion of pasta-filata cheese was established based on the material properties during the major steps plasticization, conveying and texturization. Thermo-rheological properties of model cheese curds (pH 5.8 adjusted by citric acid) were determined by small amplitude oscillatory strain experiments (20 - 80 degrees C) to narrow a promising range of the process temperature process. It was shown that partial derivative(process) should be set according to the following relation: partial derivative(gel-sol) (full plasticization) <= partial derivative(product) <= partial derivative(tan delta max) (peak flowability). Critical shear rates (gamma crit) of plasticized model cheese were analyzed by a capillary rheometer and translated to the screw speeds (SS) by considering the default configuration of the waterless extruder. Upscaling of process conditions was evaluated with regards to product homogeneity and chemical composition, resulting in the most promising parameters, partial derivative(process) = 63 degrees C and SS = 10 rpm. Experiments using fermented and ripened cheese curd (pH 5.0) corroborated the proposed process design strategy.