Making and Eating Ricotta Cheese

We discussed making Simple Farm Cheese in our post Making Queso Fresco back in June.  Did you know that once you finish making cheese, you can still make another type of cheese from the whey that remains.  We've made a couple of batches of ricotta since then and wanted to show you how we did it.  Credit to the book, "Home Cheese Making" by Ricki Carroll.

Once you make cheese, you are left with whey.  We normally use kefir whey as a preservative to make lacto-fermented vegetables, pickles, etc.  With the whey we get after making cheese, we sometimes feed it to the chickens.  In this case we make ricotta.  Pour 1 gallon of whey into a pot and heat it to 200 degrees.

Keep stirring, turn off the heat and add 1/8 cup of apple cider vinegar. 

The acid makes things "break."  Tiny flecks of protein will appear in your spoon.  These are the curds that form your ricotta cheese.

Pour the entire contents of your pot into a muslin-cloth lined colander.  This acts as a strainer.

You can see that the whey flows right on through into a bowl we have positioned below the colander.

We added in 2 ounces of buttermilk to the curds.  This is a mesophilic starter that improves the flavor.

We tied the muslin cloth in a knot and allowed it to continue dripping for several hours.

Once you open the muslin cloth, you can see your ricotta cheese.  It is done!

We add a quarter teaspoon of salt.

Stir it all up...

The hens will be happy to drink up all this whey.  We always find that they lay more eggs the day after they drink it.  (Maybe it is just in our minds, though)

And now for the best part - eating it!  We like to spread it on water crackers.  The cheese is flavorful on its own.

Or ricotta cheese is perfect for adding herbs for hints of another flavor.  Here I've added tarragon. 

Tricia also has added garlic and dried basil mixed into it that we really like.  It is an easy, delicious cheese to make right in your own kitchen that requires no special equipment or aging.