Looking for a simple sauce, dip, or spread with an outrageously creamy texture? This Ricotta Cheese Sauce is light, airy, and velvety smooth, with flavors of Parmesan and garlic.
It’s a perfect solution to homemade pasta sauce without tomatoes (well, this and my Sweet Potato Pasta Sauce!) and brings indulgent texture and savory flavor with just 5 ingredients plus salt and pepper.
Plus, it’s a cold preparation which means a quick and easy recipe that requires no heat! In just 10 minutes, you’ll have this versatile cheese sauce on your table.
And let me tell you, as a mom balancing family life and a sophisticated taste for food, a no-cook, easy and efficient recipe that’s still better than your average is something I need in my back pocket!
Ricotta Cheese Sauce Ingredients
This recipe works well with any variation of ricotta, whether it be whole milk, part-skim, or fat free. The same goes for the milk! The crushed red pepper is optional, but I found it brought a nice little bit of heat to the sauce.
Ricotta Sauce for Pasta Tips and Tricks
Peel the Garlic
Ricotta is responsible for the seriously delectable texture of this sauce, but it’s very mild in flavor. This delicious sauce for pasta relies on the fresh garlic and Parmesan for flavor.
This, coupled with the fact that this recipe uses minimal ingredients, means that using fresh garlic is important here. Grab two large cloves of garlic and peel them.
In order to peel them easily, I like to use the flat side of my knife to crush the garlic. This will split the outer layer of the garlic, making it much easier to peel away.
You can compost the paper-thin layers of the garlic or save it to make your own vegetable broth.
Use a Food Processor or Blender
Once your garlic is peeled, everything else from here on out can be done in a food processor or high-powered blender.
I like to process the garlic first on it’s own to mince it. Then it will seamlessly mix into your cheese sauce without leaving any bigger clumps behind.
Add Your Ricotta Sauce Ingredients Next
Once your garlic has the opportunity to mince in the food processor, go ahead and dump the rest of your ingredients in. This includes the ricotta, Parmesan, milk, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper (optional). Simple as that!
Then, blend again on high until everything combines and the cheese sauce is smooth and airy. The food processor or blender will help to aerate the sauce to give you that velvety texture.
Notice, this recipe requires no heat and is completely cold preparation. This is because when heated, the texture changes dramatically.
I tested this recipe with heating and it went from creamy to almost curdled. This is because unlike other cheese, ricotta contains acid, and when it looses moisture, it becomes elastic.
After thoroughly testing this recipe, I landed on cold preparation for the best texture. This means serving it over hot pasta or warmed bread is the best way to make it into a hot meal. But more on serving later.
How to Serve Ricotta Cheese Sauce
My favorite way to serve this cheese sauce with ricotta is over hot pasta. This sauce requires a cold preparation, as when you heat ricotta, it changes the texture.
When you heat ricotta, it actually reduces the moisture content in the cheese, making it more elastic and almost crumbly. I recommend keeping it cold and serving it over hot pasta.
You can also save some of the water that you cook the pasta in to thin it out and heat it up slightly.
Pictured below, I serve this cheese sauce for pasta over hot linguine! I have, however, eaten this with a variety of different pasta shapes from angel hair to penne, and enjoyed them all!
Outside of pasta, here are some of my favorite serving ideas:
- As a spread on crostini or toast (like in this Whipped Ricotta Crostini).
- As a dip for crackers, pretzels, etc.
- On a charcuterie board.
- As a dip for fresh fruit like apples, berries, peaches, and especially pears.
- Dolloped on a pesto pizza!
How to Properly Store Whipped Ricotta Sauce
It’s best to store the whipped ricotta in an airtight container on its own (without the pasta, bread, etc. you are serving it with). It will last in the refrigerator for 3-5 days. It’s best not to freeze leftovers in this case.
Serve it straight out of the fridge over hot pasta or with any of the options listed above. If you do want to thin it out and you aren’t making fresh pasta so you don’t have the pasta water on hand, you can add it back to the blender or food processor and add more milk.
Continue to add milk and bend until you’re happy with the consistency to use as a pasta sauce. Note: you may want to add more salt and pepper once you thin it out with milk, so taste as you go.
10-Minute Creamy Ricotta Cheese Sauce
SAVE RECIPE TO COLLECTION PIN PRINT RATEEquipment
- Food Processor * or *
Ingredients
- 2 cloves garlic
- 15 ounces ricotta cheese
- ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- ½ cup milk of choice
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional for heat)
- fresh basil for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Use the flat end of a sharp knife to crush the garlic cloves so that you can easily peel away the paper-thin outer layer.
- Add the peeled garlic cloves to a food processor or high-powered blender and blend on high until the garlic is minced.
- Add the ricotta, Parmesan, milk, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes (optional) and blend on high until smooth.
- Serve over hot pasta, on crostini or toast, as a dip for veggies, or even with fresh fruit. If you are serving over pasta, I recommend conserving some of the water that the pasta is cooked in to loosen that sauce if need be.
Pro Tips
- This ricotta sauce is a cold preparation as when heated, ricotta can easily curdle. If you want it with a hot meal, I recommend keeping the sauce cold and serving over hot pasta. If it does end up changing texture when it hits the hot food, please note that it is absolutely still safe to eat!
