Raise your hand if you’ve been curious about making your own cheese!
Anyone? Bueller?
Well I’ve been firmly in the “want to” category for ages and thought this summer was a good time start trying. I’ve heard that making ricotta is sort of the ground level of home cheese-making I finally decided to start off with a basic ricotta cheese recipe a few weeks ago.
And ummm. That recipe was a major fail!
A half gallon of milk wasted. I was not a happy camper.
Fast-forward one month and the recipe I’m sharing with you today is pretty fantastic! Like, truly, lick-the-spoon, fantastic!
I’ve made 3 separate batches of this ricotta cheese now and as it turns out, really good homemade ricotta cheese is so ridiculously easy to make!
I have used different ratios of milk:cream each time, based on what I have in the fridge. And I once used half-and-half in place of the cream.
While each batch has turned out slightly different I’ve loved every batch so far!
And I love seeing how the different proportions of dairy yield different outcomes for this ricotta cheese!
I was home to monitor the moisture in the cheese while the whey drained for the first two batches I made, but for the most recent batch (made as shown in the ingredient list below) earlier this week, I sort of squeezed it in before heading to work and let the whey drain out in the fridge for the day.
Versatility in ingredients and methods sometimes kills a recipe but in for this recipe, I had no issues at all.
The homemade ricotta cheese turns out lusciously creamy no matter how you make it! There’s just a hint of acidity in the cheese from the lemon juice (it’s not lemon-flavored though) so that adds another little level of flavor to this cheese.
I love this ricotta so much that I schmeared it all over three different types of crostini for dinner last night while we stood at the kitchen island and shoveled them into our bellies.
Man oh man! Those crostini were the PERFECT way to highlight this delicious homemade ricotta cheese!
We’ve also used it for our ever-favorite 3 cheese rosemary and pepperoni pizza. Seriously, that pizza is utter pizza perfection!
And as the summer wanes on and my cooking ambition dies with the heat, I can definitely see these herbed ricotta bruschettas being another insanely easy meal to make with my homemade ricotta.
If you haven’t already hopped on the homemade cheese train, I’m begging you to start with this ricotta cheese. If you love ricotta as much as we do, you definitely can’t go wrong with making your own!
Fresh Homemade Ricotta Cheese
- Cook Time: 2hrs 15min
- Yield: 1 to 1½
Notes
Keep in mind that the more milk you use, the larger the curds will be and the ricotta will be a little drier. If you’re planning to use the ricotta for a filling or topping in a dish (like skillet eggplant lasagna, warm pasta salad with ricotta and peas, or this 3-cheese rosemary and pepperoni pizza), you’ll want it a little on the drier side. For spreading on sandwiches or grilled bread, you’ll want it to be less dry. So extra milk, like 3 ½ cups milk and ½ cup cream, will yield a drier ricotta. And more cream, like as shown below, will yield a much creamier texture.
If you forget about the cheese while it is straining (it happens!) and it ends up too dry for your liking, stir in some of the whey (strained-off liquid) by the tablespoon until it loosens up a little. Generally, the cheese will dry a little and firm up while in the fridge so you’ll want to err on the side of it being a little less dry before you stick it in the fridge.
Ingredients
3 cups whole milk (see recipe notes above)
1 cup heavy cream
½ tsp coarse sea salt
3 tbsp freshly squeeze lemon juice
Instructions
-
01
Pour the milk and cream into 3- or 4- quart saucepan, stir in the salt, and pop your long candy/deep fryer thermometer onto the side of the pan. Over medium heat, bring the temperature of the mixture up to 190° F, remove the pan from the heat, and slowly pour in the lemon juice. Give it a slow stir for a couple seconds and let the mixture sit untouched for 5 minutes. In that time, line a mesh strainer with a double-layer of cheesecloth or one paper towel and set the strainer over a large bowl. I’m partial to the paper towel since I almost never have cheesecloth in the house when I need it.
-
02
After 5 minutes, pour the whole mixture into the lined strainer and allow the whey to drain out into the bowl for 1-2 hours. After the first hour, check the cheese for consistency. If it’s too loose for what you plan to use the it for, allow it to strain for up to one more hour. If it’s the right consistency, transfer the cheese to a resealable container, stir to combine and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before using; discard the whey unless you have other recipes you could use it for (I don’t yet).
adapted from Smitten Kitchen
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*hand raised*!!!! I am SO curious about homemade cheese and this ricotta is making me want to do so EVEN MORE!
DO IT! You’ll love it. Seriously. 🙂
I love ricotta. It’s at the bottom of cheese making. Goodness. I also am curious about cheese making. We have a folk school in my area that teaches all the time. This post is inspiring.