How to Make Ricotta Cheese

In this post I’ll be sharing how to make ricotta from any amount of milk.

I make this whole milk ricotta from raw goats milk, but you can use any kind of raw milk, or even pasteurised milk. Ricotta is one of the few cheeses that will still work with pasteurised (UHT) milk. The quality is much better when it’s made with raw milk, but you can use whatever milk you have on hand to make this cheese.

Ricotta can be an excellent homestead staple food. Use it with seasonal vegetables in pasties (savoury hand pies), make a veggie burger by mixing in some egg, grated vegetables, and flour, and use it in all kinds of cheesecakes, dips, sweet or savoury tarts, or on toast with honey.

How whole milk ricotta works

Rather than using rennet to form a curd, the combination of heat plus enough acid added at the right moment curdles the milk. You can adjust the texture of the curds by adjusting the temperature – for more delicate curds, heat to 85ºC (185ºF), if you want very firm curds or are making paneer with the ricotta, use 92ºC (199ºF). In this recipe I’ve used somewhere in between these, as I find 88ºC (190ºF) makes a good all-purpose ricotta.

What can be used to acidify ricotta?

You can make ricotta with any edible acidic thing that you have around the house: kombucha, sauerkraut juice, homemade vinegar, purchased vinegar of any kind, citrus juice, leftover whey, soured milk, or yoghurt. There are some things to keep in mind when you are choosing an acid, and you can’t use all of these options interchangeably – some need to be used more heavily than others.

The weaker the acid you are using, the more of it you’ll need to use, and the more it will cool your milk down if you are adding it cold. You can make up for this when using a weaker acid by heating your milk up to a higher temperature, or by heating the acid up.

To keep things simple, in the formula below and in the recipe I’ll be sharing, I’ll use vinegar or lemon juice, which are similar in strength. You can use any kind of vinegar you like, and get subtle differences in the flavour of your ricotta. Cider vinegar is my favourite, because I always have that on hand, but feel free to use red wine vinegar, white wine vinegar, lemon juice or lime juice.

Can I make ricotta without a thermometer?

Yes, you can. You can either bring the milk to the boil, and that way you know that it’s definitely hot enough, or you can just heat until it’s giving off a lot of steam, like in the videos I share in this article, and then add your acid then. If you put your finger in the hot milk, it should be so unbearably hot that you need to remove it right away – if you can comfortably hold your finger in the milk even for a second, it’s not hot enough. 

How to make ricotta from any amount of milk

Ricotta is a really easy cheese recipe to scale up or down. For every 500mls (2 cups) milk, simply use 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice, and a small pinch of salt, or use the following table to work with however much milk you have on hand. I adjust ricotta recipes made from homegrown goats milk depending on how much milk needs to be made into cheese that day, or how much ricotta I need for a particular recipe.

Amount of milk	Vinegar or lemon juice needed	Optional salt amount
500ml (2 cups) milk	15ml (1 tablespoon) vinegar or lemon juice	Optional dash of salt
1 litre (1 quart) milk	30ml (2 tablespoons) vinegar or lemon juice	Optional 1/4 teaspoon salt
2 litres (2 quarts) milk	60ml (1/4 cup) vinegar or lemon juice	Optional 1/2 teaspoon salt
4 litres (1 gallon) milk	120ml (1/2 cup) vinegar or lemon juice	Optional 1 teaspoon salt

Easy homemade ricotta cheese recipe

Ingredients 

2 litres (2 quarts) milk 

60ml (1⁄4 cup) cider vinegar or lemon juice, plus 2 tablespoons more if needed

Optional 1⁄2 teaspoon salt 

Equipment 

Saucepan 

Spoon 

Cheesecloth (this organic one is the best)

Optional milk thermometer (this is what I use)

Colander 

Method 

Heat 

Heat the milk in a pot over a medium heat, stirring every now and then to ensure the bottom doesn’t scald, until it is very hot and almost boiling (it should reach a temperature of around 88ºC (190ºF)).

Add vinegar 

Continue to stir and slowly pour in the vinegar while stirring for a few seconds more. Stop stirring, remove it from the heat, and leave it to rest – it should begin to separate into white curds and green or yellow whey within a minute. If the whey appears to still have a lot of milk in it at this point, add a tablespoon or two more of vinegar while gently stirring.

Rest 

Leave it to rest for 15 minutes. This step is crucial as it allows the curds to knit together slightly and get stronger, and to settle at the bottom of the pot to make draining easier.

Drain 

Carefully arrange your cheesecloth to cover the colander, in one layer if you’re using butter muslin or tight cheesecloth, or in four layers if you’re using loosely-woven cheesecloth. When the curds and whey have rested for 15 minutes, carefully pour them or spoon them into the lined colander. Leave to drain for around 20 minutes. You now have ricotta. 

Add optional salt 

If you’re adding salt to the ricotta, mix it through now. Use half a teaspoon of salt to two litres (two quarts) milk. Once you’ve added salt, you can continue draining for a bit longer, if you want to remove more whey to have a drier, crumblier ricotta, or you can use it right away.

How to store and serve homemade ricotta

Ricotta can be used right away, or can be put in a container with a lid and stored for a week in the fridge, or for several months in the freezer.