Homemade ricotta cheese is simple to make at home. You just need some time and a few ingredients.
Homemade Ricotta Cheese Recipe
4 cups whole milk
½ cup heavy cream
½ teaspoon, heaped, kosher salt
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice or white wine vinegar
Colander
A very clean dishtowel or several layers of cheesecloth
To make ricotta cheese at home, start by combining milk, cream, and salt in a medium saucepan. Place over medium heat. Stir regularly, to prevent scorching the bottom of the pan, until the milk becomes steamy and frothy. You don’t want it to do much more than simmer gently. Set a colander in a large bowl and line the colander with a couple of layers of cheesecloth. The cloth should hang generously over the sides of the colander.
When the milk reaches the foamy, frothy point, add the lemon juice or vinegar. For a creamier, moister home cooked ricotta cheese with small curds, remove the pot from the heat immediately and let it sit for about 10 minutes. If you’d prefer a drier, denser ricotta cheese with larger curds, keep the mixture on the heat, very gently simmering, for 1 to 2 minutes. In either case, you’ll see the white curds begin to separate from the thin-looking, watery, yellowish whey.
Strain the mixture into the lined colander and let it drain until the consistency looks like you want your home made ricotta cheese to look. A lot of liquid will drain off. Make sure the bottom of the colander doesn’t touch the whey. Use a fresh bowl if you need to. Don’t toss the whey! Save it for up to 3 days and use it to make bread, cake, smoothies, creamy soups, or porridge—or even cook a grain like rice or quinoa in it.
For a small-curd ricotta cheese, the mixture may still look pretty moist when you decide to pack it into a container and stick it in the fridge, and it may take up to an hour to look that way; a larger-curd ricotta cheese may take as little as five minutes. Keep in mind that the cheeses will firm up slightly in the refrigerator. Your home made ricotta cheese will keep for about a week in the fridge.
For more interesting recipes to try at home, check out https://www.forkscorksandbrews.com/forks/