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The Culinary Enthusiast shows you how to make your own ricotta cheese.
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I usually get 2 lb of Precious Ricotta for $3.99 at Costco…I wonder how much this works out to be. We always use ricotta (I’m Italian, after all,) so this is a great tip if I ever can’t find it one sale.
I was wondering the same thing. I guess it would depend on the price of milk in your area. Since I live in dairy country, a gallon of milk can be as little as $1.79 during a sale. Regular price $2.69. A whole gallon would still make less than 2 lbs, but you’d also be left with whey to use in other recipes. This recipe doesn’t call for much hands-on time, and you’re also left with a product free of artificial preservatives. I don’t know about the Precious brand, but most store bought brands have thickeners and stabilizers added.
Oh my! That’s something I had never even considered was a possibility! Amazing what you can do!
Brand new to your site !Love it so far .Where is the recipe for Ricotta cheese ?Did I miss it ?Can’t wait to make coffee drink since I have so envelopes from Tasters choice deal a couple of montha ago.
Click on the green text in the post to take you to the recipe. Welcome!
Wow, never thought about trying to make ricotta at home. I have several make-ahead/freezer meal days planned this summer, I think I’ll add this to the list – them make stuffed shells and lasagna with it. Thank you for all your homemade recipes. We are trying to eat less processed foods and less sodium, so I love checking out the posts and links.
What’s nice about making it yourself is that you can make just as much as you need by scaling the recipe. I’ve used another technique to make ricotta in the microwave.
Julia, care to share? I was wondering if it would work to heat the milk in the microwave.
Certainly. I have used the recipe I found at Serious Eats several times. Here is the link:
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/02/how-to-make-fresh-ricotta-fast-easy-homemade-cheese-the-food-lab-recipe.html
Thanks!
We’ve made cheese a few times. Don’t compare the cheese you would make at home to kraft singles or anything like that. It much more closely represents the very expensive artisan cheese in the stores, the stuff that goes for more like $15-30/lb (yes pick-up your coffee, artisan cheese can and does cost that much but it’s so rich you don’t need but a pinch of it for a wonderful flavor) So when you compare it to the stuff that it actually tastes like it’s a great deal.
Do you think this could be made with preciously frozen milk? Our Kroger runs their nearly expire milk fora quarter. If I could freeze it and then make ricotta for a quarter I might pass out.
I don’t know why it wouldn’t work since vinegar curdled milk is still curdled milk. But if you are worried about trying, make a whole bunch when you get the milk and freeze the ricotta. Ricotta freezes really well. I imagine the whey would freeze just fine too. I usually prepare my ziti or lasagna ricotta ahead of time by adding the egg and parm. cheese right before freezing in the amounts that I will need. Then I pull it out when I’m ready to build the casserole.
Now that I’m thinking about it more though, since the milk is expiring, you would want to make SURE that it is fresh enough to make cheese with. I think I read that fresh milk is necessary for making a good cheese. Though I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ve never actually made my own cheese before. Do we have any experts reading this who would know?
Not sure, but I think fresher is always going to yield a superior product, even if only slightly. I know that in certain countries, such as France, freshness of food is taken very seriously. Things like butter and cream really do taste better there – especially if you eat slowly enough to notice. Not to sound like a food snob, but we Americans sometimes do not value quality as much as quantity.
Anyway, I bet old milk would still work, but the cheese may not be as good as it could be. Yet if one has never eaten really good cheese (or only had store frozen lasagna), one would never know the difference. It’s worth a try.
pretty cool.. gonna have to try this soon! Thanks!
I have made the Cooking Light version of homemade ricotta a few times and while it might be cheaper to buy ricotta in the store with the current price of milk in my area, I have never bought ricotta in the store that tasted as good as this! I ate the homemade cheese by the spoonful before ever trying to use it in a recipe- it is amazing and well worth trying it!
I had two gallons of milk that soured before the expiration date and I hated to let it go to waste so I did some research. I found this was the easiest thing to make! I knew I wasn’t going to use it right away, so I froze it. Taste great fresh or thawed, but fresh is best.