Hey everyone. I am spending some time today making some meals for this week's dinners. So all I really have to do is heat something up or put some dressing on some salad.

Well, silly me forgot to put ricotta cheese on the grocery list BUT I still have a good amount of cottage cheese in the fridge. For some reason I remember my mil telling me a while back ago that she has used cottage cheese instead of ricotta. Has anyone done or heard this? I thought I would post this before I start the lasagna process.

Thanks!

hi i am a resto owner and i have used cottages cheese all the time low fat and i have used ricotta as well. good luck i make mine in 10lb batches and freeze. that is with the everything in and ready pull out of freezer and put in oven tv dinner style for one person. i make my pizza dough a head as well and freeze. i have all so made the pizza ready to eat and froze as well. vett

"Instead they had a very, very creamy sauce layer. It was insanely delicious!"
That is a bechemel. Actually very yummy!! Kind of northern Italianish!

Sorry Maryjo- close your eyes!!!You can use low-fat cottage cheese and add a little lemon zest, a tad lemon juice, parsley and parm. cheese to mix in with the cottage cheese. For me I like the ricotti cheese only but I have had to make it for friends that way for diet reasons and they couldn't tell the differce. I used small curd cottage cheese. Hope it works out for you and I freeze any left overs wrapped well in heavy duty foil and my BF just pulls one out of the freezer and heats at work for lunch. He dug out a piece he had knocked to the back( almost a year old) and didn't even taste freezer burnt.

quote:

Originally posted by Lori4squaremom:
With using cottage cheese .... which is how an italian chef taught my mom to make it, by the way...

Interesting! Because when I had lasagna at an Italian restaurant in Munich (funny, I know; but Germany is full of Italian restaurants run by Italian immigrants), they didn't use ricotta either. Instead they had a very, very creamy sauce layer. It was insanely delicious!

Wonder if there are regional variances?

P.S. MaryJo, I'm with you on the canned parmesan cheese ... UGHH!

No hard feelings! Really!! Just a kind of sacrilidge to some. Well, here, I guess just me. There are certain things that I would never mess with and that is one of them. Kind of like sprinkling cheese from a can onto my ravioli!! Won't ever happen.....Ever!!

Sorry MaryJo,

I started trying to find subs for the ricotta several years ago when I could no longer get it at Costco. Ricotta is SOOOO stinking expensive, a simple lasagna would cost me $12-15!!!!!! That is insane! With using tofu (or occasionally the cottage cheese .... which is how an italian chef taught my mom to make it, by the way) I can make a nice thick 9 x 13" lasagna for $5-6....which is manageable for a nice dinner meal for our family.

Sorry guys, I just can't listen to this!

I alway's use cottage cheese...I just spread on thinly as a layer..

It makes it so cheesy

quote:

Originally posted by Tayhudson:
Lots of people use cottage cheese instead of ricotta. If you like the smoothness of ricotta, you could run the cottage cheese through the food processor or blender.

I would also add, mix in some beaten egg with the cottage cheese; helps it bind.
I often substitute it for ricotta, because I always have cottage cheese in my fridge. And, well, it is cheaper!

(Sorry Mary Jo...)

My Nonna is rolling over in her grave right now!!!

Steph,

Yes, you can use cottage cheese instead of ricotta. I do sometimes, I also (more often) use silken tofu in place of the ricotta. If you have any tofu in the house, you can put it in the blender or food processor (or even mash it by hand) with egg, salt, italian seasoning, garlic, parmesan (if you are using it)....whatever you would use in your ricotta, but you WILL need to salt the tofu.....it is rather bland if you don't.

quote:

...she has used cottage cheese instead of ricotta...

Mom has always used (full-fat) cottage cheese, rather than ricotta, for Lasagna. (I don't know what her original recipe called for.)

I don't have an answer but lasagna sounds so good...let us know how it turns out and one of these days I will become ambitious enough to make meals ahead!
Jill

Lots of people use cottage cheese instead of ricotta. If you like the smoothness of ricotta, you could run the cottage cheese through the food processor or blender.

Lasagne sounds yummy. We're having spaghetti. It must be an Italian sort of a day.

Dawn