Ricotta is a fresh cheese that we go crazy for. Its mild flavor and rich, creamy texture makes it a perfect comfort food. From pillowy gnocchi to airy coffee mousse, we’ve rounded up our favorite ricotta recipes.
You can buy ricotta at a supermarket, but it’s easy to make it at home. All you have to do is cook together milk, buttermilk, and half & half, let the mixture cool, and strain it through a cheesecloth. That’s all there is to it. You’ll never get the store-bought stuff again.
One of the simplest ways to enjoy fresh ricotta is on a crostini. Try pairing it with simple toppings like spicy soppressata, sweet broiled cherry tomatoes, or black olives, lemon zest, and mint. For something a little heartier, top your ricotta crostini with rosemary-scented cannellini beans spicy sautéed broccoli rabe.
Fresh ricotta makes for beautifully ethereal gnocchi. Check out our vibrant beet and ricotta gnocchi with wilted beet greens and tangy balsamic vinegar or earthy buckwheat gnocchi with cream, peas, and spinach. For gnocchi that are soft but still substantial, we use both ricotta and potato. Try them served in a tomato sauce with briny olives and capers.
With its tangy sweetness, ricotta is a refined dessert ingredient. It serves as the base for our easy but elegant coffee mousse, which is rich, creamy, and just a little bitter. Mixed with an egg, ricotta bakes into an amazing custard. We love topping baked ricotta with a floral cherry-orange blossom compote.
Find all of these dishes and more in our collection of ricotta recipes.
This recipe comes courtesy of Jenn Louis, chef-owner of Lincoln and Sunshine Tavern in Portland, Oregon. We featured Louis’ ricotta gnocchi in our April 2015 issue, and we can’t stop making this super-creamy ricotta—to add to gnocchi and everything else—because it’s so easy and so darn good. Get the recipe for Homemade Ricotta »
A dollop of ricotta on earthy-sweet oat bread is delicious; add a drizzle of sourwood honey and it’s elevated to the exquisite. For a bit of sophisticated heat, top with a sprinkle of freshly-crushed red pepper flakes.
Adapted from Anna Watson Carl’s cookbook The Yellow Table, this salad is best made in the winter when blood oranges are readily available. Navel oranges make a good substitute in other seasons—either way, it’ll be the prettiest dish on the table.
This epic Genoese tart, filled with swiss chard, was traditionally made with 33 layers of dough—one for each year of Christ’s life.
Ricotta pancakes soaked in cardamom syrup and sprinkled with pistachios make a creamy, ethereal dessert. Get the recipe for Ricotta Pancakes in Cardamom Syrup (Malpura) »
This scramble of fresh ricotta, flavored with chiles, onions, and tomatoes, is delicious wrapped in warm tortillas or piled on toasted bread. Get the recipe »
Like a lot of chefs, Jared Bennett of Metropole in Cincinnati is into charring vegetables to amplify their natural sweetness inside, and lend them a pleasantly bitter crust. The secret, he says, is precooking many of the vegetables and then just searing them in a smoking-hot cast-iron pan, so they don’t go to mush before getting a char. One of his signatures: this sweet potato side dish with pomegranate, lemon juice, pistachio, and ricotta salata. Get the recipe for Charred Sweet Potatoes with Pickled Shallots, Pistachios, and Ricotta Salata »
In this dish, zucchini are stuffed with the twin stars of Calabrian cheese making: pecorino and ricotta. Flecked with tomato and mint, they are equally good eaten hot or at room temperature.
Every part of the orange is used in this subtly sweet tart, including the zest, juice, and flesh. If temple oranges are not available, navel oranges or tangerines make excellent substitutions. Get the recipe for Temple-Orange Tart »
Creamy, luscious cows’ or sheep’s milk ricotta pairs beautifully with soppressata and grilled, toasted, or fried slices of crusty bread for a simple and rustic crostini.
