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You may never buy ricotta cheese again after you taste this. Dense, creamy and delicious homemade ricotta surpasses any store-bought brand I’ve ever tried, and requires only two ingredients and about twenty minutes of actual cooking time.
I use high quality ingredients to make ricotta—Straus organic milk and my homemade buttermilk (also made with Straus milk). I buy only whole milk. Fat tastes good and we need it. Do not use skim or non-fat milk as those lack the fat necessary to make ricotta.
Straus milk is pasteurized but not homogenized. For cheese-making, homogenized milk retains more moisture and fat in the curd and renders a finer, denser texture, according to food writer Harold McGee. (If you find the science of the kitchen as fascinating as I do, check out his classic On Food and Cooking.) Do not use ultra-pasteurized milk, as it may not curdle.
Many ricotta recipes call for lemon juice or vinegar rather than buttermilk. Because I only need milk to make my buttermilk (milk + a bit of cultured buttermilk = more cultured buttermilk), I buy fewer products and so prefer this method.
I avoid buying anything packaged in plastic, especially food. I don’t want to be exposed to BPA any more than I already am (the stuff is everywhere), but even more so, I want to contribute as little as possible to the mind-boggling problem of plastic pollution. Until I get that cow (one day…), I can’t get much closer to plastic-free and zero-waste than buying milk in returnable glass bottles.
Ingredients
Yields 2 cups
- 1/2 gallon (8 cups) whole milk
- 2 cups cultured buttermilk (not flavored buttermilk)
Directions
1. Combine milk and buttermilk in a pot. I used a 4-quart size.
2. Heat mixture slowly until it reaches between 190 to 200 degrees—the temperature it hits just before it boils. It will curdle at this point. Turn off the heat.
My instant-read thermometer broke when I last made yogurt (I dropped it in the pot of milk) but I had no problem determining when to turn off the flame for my ricotta. The milk did remain creamy and uniform for what seemed a long time and I thought curdles would never form. But they did. I don’t think I’ll bother replacing my thermometer.
3. Wait 20 minutes for the curds to sink to the bottom of the pot.
4. Over a bowl, place a sieve lined with a thin towel. Transfer the curdled milk to the sieve.
5. Let the ricotta strain for about half an hour, depending on how wet you want it. Transfer it to a glass container and store in the fridge for up to a week.
Ricotta cheese produces an alarmingly large amount of whey. Unfortunately, the heat kills the microbes in the buttermilk culture, so I can’t use this for any lacto-fermentations 🙁 But I will make pizza tomorrow with the ricotta as a topping and I’ll replace the water with whey in the dough. I’ll also make bread with some whey. I may have to freeze one of these jars though because I can bake only so much bread.
What should I make with the rest of this homemade cheese? Do you have a favorite recipe that calls for ricotta? I would love to hear about it.
Ricotta Cheese
Yields 2 cups
Ingredients
- 1 gallon (8 cups) whole milk
- 2 cups cultured buttermilk
Directions
1. Combine milk and buttermilk in a pot.
2. Heat mixture slowly until it reaches between 190 to 200 degrees—the temperature it hits just before it boils. It will curdle at this point. Turn off the heat.
3. Wait 20 minutes for the curds to sink to the bottom of the pot.
4. Over a bowl, place a sieve lined with a thin towel. Transfer the curdled milk to the sieve.
5. Let the ricotta strain for about half an hour, depending on how wet you want it. Transfer it to a glass container and store in the fridge for up to a week.