It’s Super Easy To Make Your Own Ricotta. Here’s How

A few years ago, after the news startup I worked at at the time unceremoniously folded, I found myself freelancing full-time—i.e. working from home—and not by choice. The first month of that new life was a difficult adjustment.

Time, for one thing, got a little too malleable. Until I learned to structure my days, many were a hazy blur of starting assignments after dinner and forgetting to eat lunch.

Related: 10 Vegan Cheeses Even Cheese Freaks Will Love

A couple of weeks into that first freelance life, while fact checking for a publication, I came across a recipe for ricotta. It had so few ingredients, it didn’t even seem like a recipe: just milk, lemon juice and salt. Maybe I was hungry at the time, or maybe it was the fact I hadn’t left the apartment in three days, but something convinced me to put on my shoes, walk down the street, and buy a bag of whole milk. Half an hour later, I had a bowl of soft, fresh cheese draining in a bowl.

There is something restorative about quick, closed-loop acts of making. Unlike, say, starting a new knitting project or taking up preserves, making this quick cheese whenever I felt I was spiralling was like hitting a reset button. The steps were too simple and the process too quick for me to give up at any point while making it, and almost without fail there was a concrete reward for my small efforts at the end. If you’ve got a spare bag of milk at home, maybe this recipe can do the same for you.

An Easy Homemade Ricotta Recipe

• 1 bag (5 ½ cups) of whole milk
• 1 cup heavy cream (optional)
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• ¼ tsp of salt

Directions

• Mix milk with cream, if using, in a saucepan. Add salt.
• Slowly bring milk mixture to a boil over medium-high heat. Stir to keep milk from burning.
• Once it hits a boil, turn off heat and thoroughly stir in lemon juice. Let sit for two minutes, and stir again for another two minutes; the milk should separate into thick, soft curds.
• Line a sieve with cheesecloth and put over a bowl. Using a slotted spoon, strain out curds out of the saucepan into the sieve, and leave to drain: 20 minutes for “wet” ricotta, 30 minutes to an hour for a thick, denser cheese.
• Discard leftover liquid, transfer ricotta to a container and refrigerate immediately.

Looking for ideas for what to do with all that ricotta now you've made it? Get our recipe for Lidia's Penne With Ricotta And Mushrooms  or try our Classic Lasagna recipe, these protein-packed Ricotta Oat-Bran Pancakes, or this Semolina And Ricotta Cheesecake.