Need some ricotta for lasagna, another pasta dish, a dessert, or what have you? Why not make your own? The ricotta you get at the supermarket is a decent product, but it usually contains food additives like xanthan gum, guar gum, and/or carrageenan. It’s also been mass produced and transported to your supermarket, where it’s waited for you to pluck it off the shelf of your grocer’s dairy case.  It doesn’t take much time, and the flavor is fresh and refreshing, a step above the store bought stuff. Since the recipe uses lemon juice as the coagulant for the milk, it also has a ever-so-slight and oh-so-nice hint of lemon.

Follow the link for more below for a little delicious kitchen alchemy (i.e. the recipe).

Ricotta

  • 4 cups whole milk
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • a pinch or two of salt (optional)
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  1. Prepare a draining station with a fine mesh strainer and a few layers of cheesecloth. Place the cheese cloth in the strainer and put the strainer over a bowl or pan deep enough that the bottom will not sit in the drained liquid.
  2. In a heavy-bottomed 3-quart saucier or a 2-quart sauce pan, heat the milk, cream, and optional salt over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.
  3. Add the lemon juice and continue to boil while constantly stirring. You may need to adjust the heat to prevent it from boiling over, especially in a straight sided saucepan. Stir for about 1 minute, until the curds separate.
  4. Pour the curds and whey into the cheesecloth lined strainer and allow the cheese to drain for about one hour. After a time, and if you have a fine enough strainer, you may be able to remove the cheesecloth to allow the cheese to drain faster without loosing the curd.  Discard the liquid in the bowl and move the ricotta to a covered container. Refrigerate until ready to use.  The cheese will keep for 2 or 3 days.
  5. The recipe makes about 1 cup of ricotta.

Please note: Your milk and cream must not be ultra-pasteurized. Dairies are supposed to label ultra-pasteurized milk and cream as such, but apparently that isn’t always true. If in doubt, ask your grocer. Ultra-Pasteurization is a process that heats milk to a higher temperature for a shorter period of time than a standard pasteurization process. Dairy companies like this because it’s faster and cheaper. But it also creates changes in the proteins of the milk which can cause the cheese making process to fail. Most cream in the supermarket will have carrageenan in it, it works just fine with or without that additive. I’m lucky enough to have found a dairy farm that sells direct to the public, and doesn’t add carrageenan to its cream and uses standard pasteurization methods.

Additional notes: One lemon will often provide approximately 1/4 of lemon juice. You may supplement with or substitute bottled lemon juice if you like.  I hardly ever use salt when making ricotta. I don’t feel it needs it. In any case, don’t add it if you are planning on using the ricotta in a dessert application.

The ricotta recipe here was adapted from On Top of Spaghetti by Joanne Killeen and George Germon.