Great Ricotta Recipes

Fresh ricotta makes these pancakes incredibly moist and light.

Using bagel chips as the base for an hors d'oeuvre is a quick way to add flavor and crunch. Grace Parisi tops the chips with fresh ricotta, chive puree and prosciutto. As an alternative, she sometimes uses dried apricot halves in place of the chips.

Gotham Bldg Tavern chef Tommy Habetz describes gnudi as "ravioli filling without the pasta." He learned how to make his outrageously light and creamy version while working at Mario Batali's former New York City restaurant Pó.

Though frittatas are often served cooled as a first course, they make an equally good main dish, either warm or at room temperature. Here ricotta mellows the bite of broccoli rabe.

In this recipe, adapted from Wine Bar Food by Tony Mantuano and his wife, Cathy, lush ricotta-filled crêpes bake in a rich marinara sauce.

In this amazing appetizer, two types of honey serve two distinct purposes: Mellow, slightly spicy clover honey intensifies the sweetness of the tangy tomatoes as they slowly roast. After the bruschetta is assembled, a drizzle of robust buckwheat honey balances the creamy ricotta cheese.

Barley is versatile enough to be served warm or at room temperature, as in this terrific salad with walnuts, parsley and salty bits of ricotta salata cheese in a lemon-garlic vinaigrette. It can be served as a main course or as a side for grilled chicken or pork.

Instead of appearing in a soup, squash gets cut into rings, caramelized and baked in a tart that can be served with a salad as a starter, or as an unusual side dish.

Here, Laurent Gras combines green tomatoes, zucchini, asparagus and vitamin A-rich spinach. "I make this dish often in the early summer, when green vegetables are just coming into the market," he says. "You can eat a lot of it and still feel good about yourself. It doesn't make you tired like other, heavier pasta dishes can."

Bastianich stuffs homemade ravioli with ricotta, leeks, scallions and spinach, then serves it in a butter-sage sauce.

For an unusual but exceptionally easy dessert, soften a pint of vanilla ice cream, mix it with ricotta and honey, and then refreeze it. You'll want to use a premium brand of ice cream, since the quality of each ingredient is very apparent in this simple dessert.

A quick take on spinach and ricotta cannelloni, this baked pasta is fast because there's nothing to stuff. The filling is simply tossed with cooked rigatoni that's then topped with fontina and baked to a golden brown.