Making homemade ricotta cheese is the cheapest and tastiest way to get fresh ricotta in your recipes. The Instant Pot is the secret to easiest results, but you can also make it on the stove.
Recipe Origins
My family is Italian, and we LOVE Italian food. So many of our family gatherings include recipes filled with ricotta…. Manicotti, stuffed shells, lasagna, ravioli.
As a kid, my mom would make lasagna while I snuck spoonfuls of delicious, creamy ricotta cheese. Gosh, what a dream.
When I lived in Italy, I even went to a cheesemaking class, where we learned how to make pecorino cheese and ricotta!
It was so simple to make the ricotta cheese, and the end result was absolutely divine.
Luckily, this recipe for Homemade Ricotta Cheese is made even simpler with the use of the Instant Pot! The pot heats up the milk to exactly the right temperature for you so that you’re not stuck monitoring it closely. All of the hard work is done 😉
Why Make this Recipe
- Cheap: It can be expensive buying ricotta at the store! With this recipe, your homemade ricotta is as cheap as a half gallon of milk. How cool is that?!
- High Quality: Buying ricotta can be hit or miss. It’s delicious when bought behind the cheese counter at a specialty grocery store, but buying the prepackaged, preserved stuff? Yuck! With little effort, this homemade ricotta recipe yields high quality cheese that you could just eat with a spoon.
What Do I Need to Make this Recipe?
Ingredients
- Milk: Whole milk
- Vinegar: Distilled white vinegar
- Salt: Plain table salt
Tools
- Instant Pot/Pressure Cooker: Make sure that the pressure cooker you use has a “YOGURT” function
- Thermometer: I always prefer a digital thermometer if possible, but an analog meat thermometer would work as well.
- Strainer: I put my strainer in the sink, then put my cheesecloth with my cheese inside of the strainer. This way, the liquid can drain out of the cheesecloth, and drain away from the bowl.
- Cheesecloth: Cheesecloth is a thin, woven cotton material. It resembles gauze slightly and is used as a strainer to remove excess liquid while making cheese. If you don’t have a cheesecloth, you can also use another loosely-woven cotton fabric, a mesh bag (a delicates laundry bag could work well), or even just a fine wire sieve.
Watch the Recipe Video
[adthrive-in-post-video-player video-id=”8kAr0yxD” upload-date=”2021-08-02T16:48:34.000Z” name=”Instant Pot Ricotta” description=”Making homemade ricotta cheese is the cheapest and tastiest way to get fresh ricotta in your recipes. The Instant Pot is the secret to easiest results, but you can also make it on the stove. ” player-type=”default” override-embed=”default”]
How to Make this Recipe
Step 1: Heat the Milk
Instant Pot
Add the milk into your instant pot liner. Set the pressure valve to “sealing” or “steam” (depending on model).
Press the yogurt button. Allow the pot to heat up to 180 degrees Fahrenheit. It will stop automatically when it reaches 180 degrees. Use a thermometer to make sure that the temperature is measured correctly.
Stovetop
Pour the milk into a large saucepan and heat over medium heat. Simply monitor the heat of the milk while you are warming it using a thermometer. Heat until the milk reaches 180 degrees and stir occasionally so that the milk does not burn.
Step 2: Make the Cheese
Once the milk has warmed up and the pot has stopped, remove the liner from the instant pot (if using the stove method, remove the pot from the stove) . Add the vinegar into the milk and stir. Set a timer for 10 minutes and leave the milk.
When the 10 minutes are up, you should see that the milk has formed into clumps.
Step 3: Strain the Cheese
Use a cheesecloth to line a strainer. Pour the liquid into the strainer so as to remove the additional liquid and be left with only the cheese. Let the ricotta sit in the strainer for another 10-15 minutes to remove any leftover liquid.
Transfer the cheese into a bowl. Add the salt and stir. Enjoy!
Expert Tips
- Some pots may not be able to correctly read the temperature unless you use 8 cups of milk, so if you are cutting the recipe in half, make sure to use a thermometer to make sure the liquid has reached 180 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Whole milk is the best choice by far, but you can also get away with 2%. Do not use skim milk or 1% as the fat content isn’t high enough.
- For a wetter ricotta, don’t let the cheese drain as long in the cheesecloth. If you want a drier ricotta for things like dessert, you can drain the ricotta for longer. If you press the cheese under a weight, more liquid will leave it, making a drier cheese.
- The leftover “cheese water” that we discarded is called whey. You can choose to save this whey and use it in bread baking or for homemade pizza dough.
- My favorite way to eat this ricotta cheese is spread on top of a piece of toast. I top it with zucchini, pistachios, honey, and black pepper. Ohhhh my goodness. Need more ideas? Check out What To Eat with Ricotta Cheese and see my other suggestions.
- If you don’t have an Instant Pot or pressure cooker, you can make this recipe on the stove. You will have to monitor the milk so that you know when it reaches 180 degrees. In this case, stir the milk as it’s heating up so that it doesn’t burn on your stove.
Recipe FAQs
How Long Does Homemade Ricotta Last?
Make sure to store any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge. The fresh ricotta will last in the fridge for about 5 days.
How Do You Make Ricotta Cheese Not Runny?
If your ricotta is too runny, wrap it up in cheese cloth and apply some pressure. You can even place something heavy on top so that more liquid comes out of the cheese.
If your cheesecloth (or whatever cloth you’re using) is woven too tightly, the liquid that the cheese is releasing may be trapped inside the cheesecloth with the cheese. Make sure that you have an openly woven cheesecloth so that the liquid can escape.
Also make sure that you have placed the cheesecloth in a strainer and that the excess liquid coming out of the cheesecloth is draining away from the cheese.
If you placed your cheesecloth in a bowl instead of a strainer, the cheese will be soaking in the whey which could lead to it being soggy.
What Can I Make with Homemade Ricotta?
There are so many delicious options!
There are some of my personal favorites:
- Stuffed Shells
- Shrimp and Ricotta Pasta Bake
- Lasagna
- Ravioli lasagna
- Manicotti
- Ricotta toast
- Pizza
- Pasta bakes
- Charcuterie Boards
- Baked Ricotta
- And any other creative recipe you can think of. You can’t go wrong!
Did you enjoy this recipe for Homemade Ricotta in the Instant Pot? If so, make sure to check out these other recipes I picked out just for you:
- Kasespatzle from Austria
- Creamy Pesto Pasta
- Instant Pot Cacio e Pepe
- The Tiramisu Recipe I Learned in Italy
Homemade Ricotta Cheese
Equipment
- Pressure Cooker
- Strainer/Colander
- Food Thermometer
- Cheesecloth
- Mixing Bowl(s)
- Pot(s)
- Saucepan
Ingredients
- ½ gallon whole milk
- ¼ cup distilled white vinegar
- ¼ tsp salt
Instructions
- Instant Pot: Add the ½ gallon milk into your instant pot liner. Set the pressure valve to “sealing” or “steam” (depending on model).
- Press the YOGURT button. Allow the pot to heat up to 180 degrees Fahrenheit. It will stop automatically when it reaches 180 degrees. Use a thermometer to make sure that the temperature is measured correctly.
- Stovetop: Pour the ½ gallon milk into a large saucepan and heat over medium heat. Simply monitor the heat of the milk while you are warming it using a thermometer. Heat until the milk reaches 180 degrees and stir occasionally so that the milk does not burn.
- Once the milk has warmed up and the pot has stopped, remove the liner from the pot (if using the stove method, remove the pot from the stove). Add the ¼ cup vinegar into the milk and stir. Set a timer for 10 minutes and leave the milk.
- When the 10 minutes are up, you should see that the milk has formed into clumps.
- Use a cheesecloth to line a strainer. Pour the liquid into the strainer so as to remove the additional liquid and be left with only the cheese. Let the ricotta sit in the strainer for another 10-15 minutes to remove any leftover liquid.
- Transfer the cheese into a bowl. Add the ¼ tsp salt and stir. Enjoy!
Notes
- Some pots may not be able to correctly read the temperature unless you use 8 cups of milk, so if you are cutting the recipe in half, make sure to use a thermometer to make sure the liquid has reached 180 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Whole milk is the best choice by far, but you can also get away with 2%. Do not use skim milk or 1% as the fat content isn’t high enough.
- For a wetter ricotta, don’t let the cheese drain as long in the cheesecloth. If you want a drier ricotta for things like dessert, you can drain the ricotta for longer. If you press the cheese under a weight, more liquid will leave it, making a drier cheese.
- The leftover “cheese water” that we discarded is called whey. You can choose to save this whey and use it in bread baking or for homemade pizza dough.
- My favorite way to eat this ricotta cheese is spread on top of a piece of toast. I top it with zucchini, pistachios, honey, and black pepper. Ohhhh my goodness.
- If you don’t have an Instant Pot or pressure cooker, you can make this recipe on the stove. You will have to monitor the milk so that you know when it reaches 180 degrees. In this case, stir the milk as it’s heating up so that it doesn’t burn on your stove.
Karen V. says
I can’t give a rating- have not made it yet. I have made this in a pot but want to try with my instapot. However, from what I can see, the directions are not complete. They stop at adding milk to liner and set for 180 degrees.
What’s next? Thanks
The Foreign Fork says
Hi Karen,
The Instant pot directions begin again in step 4. Steps 1 and 3 are separate bc they are different methods, but by step 4, everything syncs up again and you can follow the recipe as written