Use It Up! 11 Recipes for Leftover Ricotta (2024)

FAQs

What to do with a lot of ricotta? ›

Ideally, store the cheese in the back of your freezer, where the temperature is the lowest. The door of your freezer is a bit warmer and can fluctuate in temperature whenever you open and close it. Stored properly, fresh ricotta will last in the freezer for one to three months.

The liquid whey left over from making ricotta is really healthy. Cover and refrigerate it to use in breads, soups, and smoothies instead of milk or water. You can also use it instead of water when cooking pasta or rice. Or, if you're really adventurous, try drinking it plain (you'll make your great-grandma proud).

Fresh ricotta is fluffy, creamy, spreadable. It can be spooned into a dish and baked in the oven to become baked ricotta. The top browns and is slightly crusty and toasted and the middle is warm and creamy. Fresh ricotta can also be baked into dishes or used as an ingredient in baked goods.

For extra creamy ricotta, add in an extra egg, a handful of grated parmesan, and a quarter cup of shredded mozzarella. Eggs help prevent the ricotta from drying out and serve to bind the ricotta so it doesn't become runny.

Unopened ricotta will last about two weeks in the fridge, while opened ricotta will last just a week. As for the freezer, you can store ricotta for up to three months.

As the curds and whey are divided by the ice, the cheese will become more dry and crumbly in texture. To make this texture difference less noticeable in your dishes, only use previously frozen ricotta in cooked dishes.

Mold on ricotta can be green, blue, or soft pink. If the ricotta has also turned a yellowish color (instead of its regular creamy white), it's another sign of spoilage. You can also apply the sniff test to ricotta. Ricotta that's fine to eat will either have no odor at all, or it might have a regular milky smell.

Ricotta cheese, like cottage cheese and cream cheese, is high in moisture and spoils more quickly than hard cheeses. Use it promptly because it only stays fresh for a week or two. If the cheese doesn't look or smell like it did when you first opened it, your best course of action is to throw it out.

Well, I'm here to tell you that, yes, ricotta is AH-MAZING on pizza and it tastes like pure heaven! Ricotta is mild, creamy, and holds its shape when heated, making it perfect for dolloping over pizza crust (for a gooey, melty cheese pizza, try Burrata Pizza).

What can you do with the whey after making ricotta? ›

You can use the whey instead of plain water for more flavor. Make butter: To use whey to make butter, leave it to cool for a few hours or overnight. The cream present in whey will rise to the top and can be scooped away and used to make butter. Pest control: Strain the whey well and dilute 1:1 with water.

Enjoy with crackers, a drizzle of honey, dried fruits or vegetable sticks. As a spread: Toast slices of banana bread or fruit toast, spread with ricotta and drizzle with honey for a snack or brekky. Finger food pasties: Ricotta and spinach are a match made in heaven.

It is often found in the filling for ravioli or thrown into pasta sauce, ricotta gnocchi are a light, fresh, dreamy alternative to the classic potato version, and there are numerous cakes, tarts, mousses and pies which all utilize the adaptable characteristics of ricotta cheese.

So, ricotta actually translates to recooked in Italian, and ricotta is what's called a "whey cheese." When you make cheese, you separate milk into two distinct things. You have the solids, called curds, which will be separated out and pressed to form cheese. And you have the liquid that is left behind, called whey.

Can you freeze ricotta cheese mixture? Yes! Say you've made a pasta filling with ricotta cheese and other ingredients like Parmesan cheese, eggs and herbs, it is perfectly fine to freeze it. On thawing, excess liquid may need to be drained away but otherwise it will be good.

Even so, frozen and defrosted ricotta should work fine in both sweet and savory baked recipes, like lasagna and cakes. Fresh ricotta can simply be frozen in the original packaging, which is usually a plastic tub. You can also freeze fresh ricotta in a freezer-safe glass glass jar or airtight container.

Ricotta lovers will be happy to know that ricotta cheese is a healthy food and belongs to the dairy food group. It can be enjoyed every day as part of a balanced diet.

Opened ricotta generally lasts for about one week in proper storage conditions. To be on the safe side, give it the sniff test. If there is any off odor, toss it.