Homemade Ricotta

There might be no better dairy product around than fresh, homemade ricotta. Rich, creamy and cloud-level light, this cheese is practically heavenly eaten warm, fresh from the pot. While store-bought can work, there's nothing quite like the homemade thing. Once prepared, it's ready to be added to practically anything: pasta dinners, spread on toast, and to plenty of Italian desserts. Honestly, we wouldn't blame you if you ate it plain from a spoon.

If you've never made cheese at home—it's much easier than you think! Follow our top tips to ace this homemade ricotta:

First: What Is Ricotta?

Technically, ricotta translates to "recooked" in Italian. What it is: a creamy, fluffy, fresh Italian cheese that tastes just as light as it does decadent. What you need to make it: dairy, a coagulant (lemon juice or vinegar), and salt. With those three ingredients, you'll have creamy, rich ricotta ready to be devoured in under an hour. 

How To Make Ricotta:

• Milk Matters When choosing a carton of whole milk, try to avoid ultra-pasteurized milk. When going through the pasteurization process, high heat alters the proteins in milk, making it more difficult for the solids to coagulate. Less coagulation = lower yield.

• Choose Your Acid Traditionally ricotta is made using leftover whey (a byproduct of cheese making you're about to become very familiar with!) to coagulate the milk. Since we won't be starting with whey, we're working with vinegar or lemon juice. Though both are practically imperceptible in the final cheese, we prefer using vinegar for savory applications, and lemon for sweet. 

• Adjust Drain Time Depending on how you'd like to use your ricotta, you may want it a little drier or a little more loose. Luckily, this is super easy to control! Just keep an eye on it once it's been transferred to your strainer. As soon as it is your desired texture, transfer it to an airtight to container and refrigerate it until you're ready to use.

• Save Your Whey Ricotta has a pretty sweet byproduct: whey! Whey is what's left behind after the milk solids have coagulated, and we implore you not to pour it down the drain! Not only can you use it to make more ricotta, you can also add it to homemade broth, replace water in baked goods like sourdough, and even water your plants, as long as you dilute it with water.

How Should I Use Ricotta?

There's truly no limit to what you can incorporate ricotta in. Our whipped ricotta toast and lemon ricotta pancakes are decadent breakfast options, while our spanakopita stuffed shells and chicken and mushroom white lasagna make for hearty dinners. Of course we couldn't forget about our homemade cannoli and Italian ricotta cookies. 😉

Made this? Let us know how it went in the comment section below!