Ricotta cheese is surprisingly easy to make, to me it’s easier than canning. You can make it at home with two ingredients, whole milk and lemon juice and equipment you use everyday. It isn’t the traditional way to making ricotta, usually ricotta is made with the leftover whey from other cheeses like mozzarella. However making ricotta from whole milk is just as rewarding and you can boast to your friends that you’ve made cheese from scratch, no scientific knowledge of cheese enzymes needed; plus it’s delicious.
ricotta cheese
adapted from heidi swanson
1 quart whole milk
2 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
Combine milk and lemon juice in non-reactive saucepan over medium high heat and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally to assure nothing sticks to the bottom. When you start to see curds forming stop stirring but continue to scrape along the bottom of the pan every once in a while to free up anything that sticks.
Prepare a colander or sieve, setting it over another pot, bowl, or sink. Line the sieve with a number of layers of cheesecloth or a non-linting cotton towel.
Heat until the milk reaches between 175 and 200 degrees fahrenheit, you will see the curds (clumpy white parts) and whey (milky liquid) separate. Remove the pan from the heat, and gently ladle the curds into the lined sieve. Without squeezing or pressing, pull up the sides of the cloth, twist and tie in a knot, and let drain for at least 15 minutes or longer, depending on how dry you want your cheese.
Store in an airtight container and use within a few days, although ricotta freezes well.
You can use the leftover whey for bread baking, soup stock making, pasta cooking, to drink with some sweetener added, or to feed acid loving plants like cedar or dogwood trees, blueberries, hydrangeas, rhododendron’s like azaleas, or roses.
makes just less than a cup
notes:
– this works well using raw and pasteurized milk, and milk from both cows and goats.
- you can make more ricotta from the leftover whey, which is the traditional way to do it, but do so as soon as you can while the whey is still warm.
- here are a few recipes that are delicious uses of ricotta:
baked ricotta with figs and lavender honey
I’ve done this, and you can also use a coffee filter inside your strainer/sieve, and it works really well. The ricotta is terrific!