House Made Ricotta Cheese

Cheese making can be an exciting albeit frustrating hobby. It often requires expensive equipment and difficult to find ingredients. This house made ricotta recipe is 101 for cheese making. Super easy and super delicious for an inexperienced cheese maker looking to hit the ground running. I go back to this recipe time and time again because it does not require unpasteurized milk, or rennet. All you need is some half and half cream, acid, heat, a strainer, and some salt. No need for a thermometer, or cheese cloth. Lets get started.

I tried to make this Instructable as easy as possible with household items.

All you need is:

Ingredients:

1 Liter half and half cream

1/4 cup white vinegar

salt to taste

Hardware:

sauce pot

spoon

strainer

measuring cup

bowl for mixing

bowl or container to strain liquid into

Get your stock pot on the stove and add 1 liter of half and half cream. Next add 1/4 cup of acid. I almost always use white vinegar but you can use other vinegar's such as apple cider or use lemon juice. I find good ol' distilled vinegar gives the most consistent and best tasting cheese. Don't add the salt yet you will be able to control the the taste much better if you add it after you strain the curds from the whey. Stir your wet mixture slightly.

this recipe is scalable, just use 1/4 cup vinegar for each liter of cream.

Heat your cream mix slowly. Keep it on low and make sure never to bring it to a boil or simmer as it could burn the curd. Like with a lot of Italian food this step is less of a science and more of an art. I usually heat it for about 20 minutes and check that its not too hot with my finger. the mix should be the temp of hot bath water, it should not burn your finger. It will curdle at 80-85 degrees Celsius but I never use a thermometer.

In this step the curd should separate from the whey. You will notice it start to get kind of lumpy. If it is bubbling at all turn it down. You will know its separated when you take a spoon and pull back the curd and the liquid left behind the curd is clear. If you pull back the curd and the liquid looks like cream you still have to heat more to separate. Try not to over mix when checking with the spoon as you want to break as few of the curds as possible. Be gentile. Its done once the curds and whey are clearly separated. once you are satisfied with the separation, strain.

At this point you can strain your curds from your whey. Most people suggest using a cheese cloth lining on your strainer but it is not necessary in my opinion and cheese cloth is very expensive. All your going for here is keeping your Ricotta cheese in the strainer and discarding your whey. You can drink the whey for its protein content if you like but i find it unpleasant. There are plenty of other uses for the whey, a quick google search should point you in the right direction if you do not want to waste the whey.

Transfer from the strainer to a bowl and let your cheese cool. When it is cool add salt to taste. I always use kosher salt as i don't like the taste of the iodine they add to table salt. You can season more aggressively with with Kosher salt without running the risk of over salting. This step is all feel and preference. I would ball park that i usually add a tea spoon or so of salt. A teaspoon would likely be too much for some people. I smoke so my pallet is less sensitive to salt. You can skip the salt all together if you would like. Just remember to salt slowly. Add a little bit of salt and taste your ricotta, see if you think it has enough and add a little more if it doesn't. Remember that you can always add more salt but you cant take it out once you have put it in.

Congratulations, you did it! You can enjoy your ricotta on crackers or bread if you like. You can use it for any recipes that call for store bought ricotta. I love using it to make ravioli or lasagna. Its great on sandwiches, or wraps. Or just eat it right out of the container in front of the fridge with a spoon at 3 am in your pajamas. The world is your oyster.

Thanks for reading my Instructable I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did making it!