Baked Ricotta

A Baked Goody Bag

Summer, Winter, Autumn or Spring - any season of the year, sometimes a baked dip-like meal served with freshly grilled bread cannot be beaten. This baked ricotta with homemade tomato sauce is my childhood love and will add a smile on any dial for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

You can think of this as a version of shakshuka or dip turned into a meal and who doesn’t love a laid back dinner idea or a slightly special breakfast dish? I first fell in love with baked ricotta because I use to eat it ALL the time when I was a child. My mum used to bake plain ricotta in a small ramekin as my own vegetarian option for dinner.

I have spiced my mum’s baked ricotta recipe up without complicating or losing focus on ricotta as the main ingredient. What makes or breaks this dish is the quality of the ricotta. Please use fresh and locally sourced ricotta because the flavours will naturally shine and you will not have to add a lot of other components to help provide flavour as ricotta has a fairly bland flavour.

Grill that bread, dunk and bite - feel every component melt in your mouth. 

Baked Ricotta

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, diced

• 2 garlic cloves, crushed

• 200 grams mixed very ripe tomatoes (can use 400-gram tin tomatoes), roughly chopped

• 100 grams good quality ricotta

• 3 sprigs fresh thyme,

• Chives for garnish

Method

Place the onions with a pinch of salt in a pan and sauté for 4-5 minutes. Add garlic and thyme and cook for a further 1 minute. Add the mixed tomatoes, cooking for 15-20 minutes or until the tomato breaks down and begin to form a sauce. You may need to help this process by squishing them with the back of a fork or wooden spoon. Remove from the heat.

Preheat oven to 210 degrees Celsius. In individual ramekins or oven proof mini saucepans (serves 2-3), spoon out some tomato sauce, topped with 2 tablespoons of ricotta and a sprinkle the rough chives on top. Repeat until tomato sauce runs out.

Bake for 10-15 minutes or until the top of the ricotta turns golden and the whole mix is bubbling. Remove and serve hot with freshly grilled bread.