Move over, traditional mac and cheese, there's a new creamy contender in town - ricotta Mac and cheese! This cheesy pasta takes the classic comfort food to a whole new level with its velvety smooth texture and rich flavor from the ricotta, salty bites from diced ham and creamy texture from fontina cheese. Trust us, once you try this decadent dish, you'll never look at pasta the same way again. So grab your fork and get ready to dig in to some serious cheesy goodness!
Ricotta + Pasta = Perfection: Why This Italian Twist Will Change Your Mac and Cheese Game
If the delicious picture hasn't convinced you that you NEED to make this one, here are some more reasons!
- Perfect for entertaining: This baked mac and cheese recipe makes a great dish to entertain with because you can make a big dish of it ahead of time and just reheat it when you need it. Everyone I have served this to always loves it!
- Really Easy: The other thing I love about this recipe is that the ingredients are very simple. You can leave out some of the additions like the ham and peas but I highly recommend them.
- Ricotta Makes The Creamiest Mac and Cheese: Macaroni and cheese is perfect comfort food for any occasion and adding ricotta makes such a creamy texture and takes it to a whole new level.
Ingredients and Substitutions
- Ham Steak
- Peas (optional but highly recommended)
- Wide Egg Noodles: This Italian Mac and Cheese uses a wide egg noodle instead of the traditional elbow macaroni. You can use medium, regular or no-yolk egg noodles.
- Fontina: The fontina that is in the dish gets nice and melted and gives off a beautiful nutty flavor.
- Heavy cream
- Parmesan
- Whole Milk Ricotta: The whole milk ricotta adds a wonderful richness and give the other cheeses a place to melt into when baking in the oven.
- Garlic Powder
- Kosher Salt
- A touch of butter: I do like to use butter on the top of this macaroni and cheese to help it brown up more and it adds a little more flavor. It is not an outrageous amount, just a little bit.
How To Make
This mac and cheese dish is baked in the oven and the only cooking on the stovetop will be cooking the egg noodles. Similar to baked rigatoni, you will have those nice crisped-up pieces of pasta on the top and on the sides.
- Cook the egg noodles: You want to cook the noodles until al dente. They will cook a little bit in the oven but not too much.
- Shred the cheeses: Shred the fontina, and Parmesan and add that to a very large bowl with the shredded mozzarella.
- Prepare the other ingredients: Dice up the ham and add that to the bowl along with the garlic powder and salt.
- Mix everything together in a large bowl: Once the noodles are ready, add those to the bowl and mix it all together.
- Bake: Transfer to a large baking dish or casserole dish and bake for about 25-35 minutes or until the top is a nice golden brown color.
Storage And Reheating
To store, allow this mac and cheese to cool completely. Cover with plastic wrap or aluminum foil in the pan that it baked it and refrigerate for up to 3 days.
To reheat, just pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Pour a little heavy cream (optional but makes it extra creamy during re-heating) over the top of your noodles. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for about 20-25 minutes or until it is heated all the way through.
Variations
- Make it Vegetarian: You can leave out the ham in the recipe to make it a meatless meal.
- Switch up the cheese: If fontina is not your favorite or you are out of Parmesan, go ahead and use you favorite shredded cheese for this. Just don't leave put the ricotta 🙂
- Omit the peas: Not everyone wants peas in their mac and cheese and that is fine. Just leave them out if you prefer. You cab also add in other veggies in its place like broccoli or chopped broccolini.
Recipe FAQs
Ricotta, especially whole milk ricotta blends into the sauce of mac and cheese really well and adds a nice creamy texture.
Yes, mac and cheese freezes well. Just cool it on the counter then wrap well in aluminum foil then plastic wrap and freeze for up to 2 months. Thaw in the fridge overnight.
While many people like to substitute these two types of ricotta, for a creamy ricotta texture, whole milk ricotta is the best.
More Ricotta Recipes
Baked Ricotta Mac And Cheese Recipe
Equipment
- 9x11 oven safe baking dish
Ingredients
- 24 ounces of extra wide egg noodles 2 large bags
- 4 cups heavy cream
- 2 cups shredded Fontina Cheese Reserve ¼ cup for topping
- 2 cups Whole Milk Ricotta
- 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan Reserve ¼ cup for the topping
- 1 cup frozen peas not canned
- 8 ounces ham steak cubed
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter diced
- 1 ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon granulated garlic
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees
- Prepare your baking dish by greasing the bottom and sides with butter then set aside.
- Grab a very large bowl and add your heavy cream, ricotta, garlic, salt.
- Cut your ham into cubes, grate your Fontina and Parmesan cheese.
- Now add the Fontina cheese (make sure to reserve ¼ cup for topping) and your Parmesan cheese(reserve ¼ cup for topping) to the bowl.
- Mix well and set aside.
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
- When it is boiling, add your egg noodles and cook until it is al dente but not cooked all the way through. This is usually 2-3 minutes less than the instructions on the pasta package.
- When it is cooked, drain the pasta and add it to your bowl of other ingredients and mix well until well combines.
- Pour your noodle mixture into your baking dish.
- Now sprinkle the remaining Fontina and Parmesan cheese evenly over top.
- Sprinkle the butter evenly over the top of the cheese.
- Place your dish into the pre-heated oven and bake for 30-40 minutes until the cheese is nice and brown on top and you can see the noodles and sauce bubbling. If the noodles brown before it is done baking just cover the top with aluminum foil and finish baking.
Meg says
Thank you for sharing this recipe