Dear Reader,
I’m back!
I made ricotta. It was so much easier than I ever imagined.
Here’s the crazy part — it takes only three ingredients, milk, salt, and vinegar, and twenty minutes.
I might never have tried this had I not been cooking in the kitchen of the non-profit, The Nashville Food Project the morning fellow volunteer cook, Ann Fundis realized there was no ricotta in the walk-in for the vegetable lasagna she was about to make. Never flummoxed about anything, Ann pulled out a gallon of milk, vinegar, and salt and made her own. While she was at it, she pulled out butter, flour, thyme, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and more milk to make a béchamel sauce. She is a rockstar.
I started taking notes as I often do when I cook with Ann. She brought milk and salt to a boil and then added vinegar “until the milk starts to break up.” She let it rest a few minutes and then used a spider (a wide and shallow, wire-mesh spoon) to scoop out the spongy curds that had floated to the surface of the milky-yellow whey.
I tried a spoonful while it was warm. Oh my goodness, the ricotta was moist, fluffy, and delicious. For me, ricotta is at its best when it is freshly made and still warm like this. As it drains and cools, the texture firms up. It has a different mouth feel — still excellent, just different.
Making ricotta was in my future. I stopped at the grocery store on my way home to get a gallon of milk.
Ingredients for one quart of ricotta:
1 gallon whole milk (do not use old milk)
1½ teaspoons fine salt
⅓ cup white distilled vinegar or other acidifier (like lemon juice or white balsamic)
olive oil or cooking spray to coat bottom of the pot
Instructions:
Read the Cooking Notes below before starting.
Lightly grease a heavy-bottomed 8-quart saucepan. Pour in milk. Add salt.
Heat milk slowly over medium heat, stirring occasionally to keep from sticking, until the milk foams and starts to boil. This should take about 15 minutes. Remove saucepan from heat.
Add white vinegar, or whichever acid you have chosen to use, and stir. Once the vinegar has been distributed, stop stirring and let the milk curdle for 5-10 minutes without disturbing. It will separate almost immediately into curds and whey, and the curds will float to the top.
There are two ways to extract the curds. One is to use a slotted spoon or a spider.
The other way is to pour the mixture through a cheesecloth-lined colander or sieve and let the whey drain out. The longer ricotta drains, the drier and firmer it becomes.
I usually spoon it directly into a storage bowl and leave a little whey in the bowl to keep the ricotta moist until I use it.
Cooking Notes:
The pot needs to be large enough to contain the milk as it foams, rises, and comes to a boil.
A common problem that occurs when heating milk is it often burns the bottom of the pan. A scorched pan is a pain to clean and lends a burnt flavor to the end product, often resulting in having to throw the milk out and start over again. I found a solution on Cook’s Illustrated’s website. They suggest lightly spraying the bottom of the saucepan with oil to keep the milk from sticking. Their explanation follows: “When you add milk to a dry pan, it flows into the microscopic imperfections in the pan bottom. As the milk heats, its proteins coagulate and stick to the pan and each other. Misting the pan with vegetable oil spray prior to adding the milk creates a thin film on the pan’s surface, which acts as a barrier and makes milk proteins less likely to adhere.”
I found that when I cooked old milk, milk that was close to its “sell by” date, the ricotta had an unpleasant aftertaste bad enough that I had to throw it away.
Thinking more flavorful acidifiers like lemon juice or white balsamic vinegar would improve the flavor of the ricotta, I gave them each a try. I did not detect an appreciable difference in flavor and went back to using plain vinegar.
I experimented with varying amounts of salt and settled on 1½ teaspoons per gallon of milk, which is very neutral. Since I don’t always know how I am going to use the ricotta during the week, I prefer to be able to control the saltiness by adding more as needed.
I used whole milk. You can add a cup or two of heavy cream to make the ricotta more deluxe, if desired. I was surprised to see, in some ricotta recipes, that buttermilk was used as the acidifier. I tried it and it worked.
By the way …
The word ricotta comes from the Italian verb to recook. Traditionally, Italian cheesemakers saved and recooked the cauldrons full of whey left over from making other cheeses. The reheated whey would produce clumped proteins, or curds, that were skimmed off and called ricotta. Some cheesemakers still make it this way.
Ways we use homemade ricotta at our house:
Tomato Cobbler and Ricotta Biscuits, a fantastic recipe from The New York Times. It has changed the method I use to make biscuits.
Spinach tortellini, a dollop of ricotta, and @JudysChickens Marinara Sauce
Toast spread with ricotta and a drizzle of local honey. This is what I often eat for breakfast.
Tomato and peach salad with a dollop of ricotta
Italian Ricotta and Lemon Cookies
Ann’s TNFP Vegetable Lasagna with Roasted Butternut Squash and Sautéed Greens
How do we use the whey?
This recipe makes one quart of ricotta and three quarts of whey. We save the whey and pour it over the dog’s food. She adores it.
Related Posts:
How to Make Yogurt at Home
Homemade Grape Jelly
How to Peel an Orange or Grapefruit Quickly
How to Tell If an Egg Is Fresh or Hard-Boiled
How Canola Oil is Made (from plants grown locally)
How to Make a Thaw Detector for the Freezer
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@judyschickens 
Amazing! Thank you Judy!
My pleasure. Hope you enjoy it.
Judy, you are amazing!
Thank you, Cindy.
Hi Judy! Great and in-depth coverage on how to make ricotta. Enticing enough to make me want to try it again, even after my two past failed attempts. I’ll let you know how I make out…. LOL!
I’m so surprised to read this. You are such an experienced Italian cook — I never thought I’d be the one to teach you anything about cooking. Good luck and please do let me know how it goes.
Thank GOD you are back. Have so missed your post about urban “farming”, vegetable growing, the chickens and such. I will be trying this for sure. Thank you for all the details that you have supplied.
Thanks, Tammy. Are you on Instagram? I’ve been posting vegetable growing posts there since February. Good luck!
Ann taught me to make ricotta, too!
Wow! Makes me wonder how many people she has taught to make ricotta. She is a jewel, as are you!
Looks easy and sounds delicious. I’ll try it this week. Do you have other suggestions for using the whey?
My husband heard a story on NPR about using whey to make popsicles. He tried it and they were good. I substituted whey for water in my artisan bread making recipe.It worked, but I didn’t love it enough to do it again. Maybe other readers could give us more ideas.
Thanks, Judy! Can’t wait to try it.
Can’t wait to hear how it goes. Thanks for writing!!
This is a wonderful newsletter! I’m excited to give this ricotta receipt a try. Thanks
Thank you! Good luck!
Hi Judy. It’s me, Maggie in Knoxville. Thanks for this recipe. My grandmother used to spoon ricotta on to bread just out of the oven with cracked pepper on the top and a little drizzle of olive oil. Yum. I am definitely going to try this.
Yes! I do that, as well. Delish! I’ve spread fig preserves over the bread and ricotta, too. Good Luck!
Judy ,
I just made the ricotta and it was super easy!
Since I wanted it a bit firmer for making bruschetta with tomato, basil, and ricotta; I put a bar towel in the colander and then squeezed out the excess water while forming into a ball. Ball had cracks but I submerged in whey and hoping it will be fine. Any thoughts on creating a ‘ball’?
On a personal note we had a great time visiting you.
So happy having your recipes)
No, but you sure are thinking creatively! Did you get it to work? And, Yes, it was great to see you. Come beck anytime.
Just to let you know that I made the ricotta today and it’s fabulous! YUM.
Also, I am freezing the whey and will try to use it for soup next time I make some.
This message was a joy to read and I am so grateful for it. Thank you❤️
I love making ricotta. I always freeze my whey and use it to boil the spuds for mashed potatoes. Sooooo good!
GREAT idea! Thank you for the tip.
By the way, I find that if you want to use the cheese cloth method to drain it, you get fluffier curds I’d you ladle them into the strainer instead of pouring them. When there is just a bit left pour it gently down the side of the strainer. Then immediately leave the kitchen or you will eat the it all!!
Good to know. Happy for all tips to fluffier ricotta!
I used some of the ricotta for lasagna. Mixed with egg Parmesan and spices as usual. It was creamy and delicious. Note: if ricotta seems a little dry I whisk in a little whey to get the texture I want.
YAY!! Great to hear. Don’t you feel so accomplished?
I only wish Emma was still here.. she’d flip!
Hahaha!! Love!
Hi! A quick question – is the salt required for making this? I ask because I have several family members on a restricted sodium diet, and while I recognize it won’t taste as good without the salt (or without as much salt) for inclusion in recipes I thought it might could still get cut down even more.
Do it without salt! Get back to us with the results.
Your chickens might enjoy some whey also. I mention this only because I know you aren’t raising pigs. Yet.
When I lived in CO and made cheese with goats’ milk, I soaked corn in the whey (or occansionally in excess milk) for the pigs. The pigs loved it, and the chickens always tried to raid the pigs’ feed pans!
Hahaha! It never occurred to me to do that. Thank you!!❤️
Loved this article on Ricotta. It makes the best Lasagna. Hope you abd your family are doing well. Come see me in Jupiter sometime.
Carol Lena
Thanks, Carol! I love it when it’s still warm! Good to hear from you. xoxo