Ricotta Cheese Balls with Marinara Sauce make a quick dinner with a salad. They are easy to prepare, freeze well, and make great appetizers.
When I made the first time, I had leftover stuffing and made them into little balls that I cooked in the air fryer. The second time when I made Fresh Pasta for ravioli, I had leftover stuffing, too, and considering how good these were the first time, I thought they would be great with some marinara sauce. I bagged them up and froze them and we had them for dinner a few weeks later with salad. Nothing goes to waste in my house!
Sauce
I used freshly canned tomato sauce for this, but you can use whatever marinara sauce you like. Making fresh is very easy. Just remove the skins from the tomatoes, then cook them down with some fresh herbs and a little fresh garlic, a bit of salt, a bit of sugar, a splash of red wine, and some Penzey’s Tuscan Sunset. Make it your own by adding what you like.
The Ricotta Cheese Balls
I do not like ricotta’s sandy texture. I’m a texture person, and I don’t like egg whites or custard because of their texture. What’s a girl to do? Add spinach of course! I also like to add sun-dried tomatoes or pine nuts. You could add finely minced pepperoni or salami to spice things up a bit. Really, these little balls are very forgiving.
They are very soft to work with, so once you have formed them into balls, it’s best to freeze them. After freezing them, you can bread them in flour, egg and Panko. If you want to get more interesting, add some spice to the Panko.
I didn’t fry these. I put them in the air fryer and they turned out perfect. If you don’t have an air fryer, I suggest heating them in a standard oven.
Email Me the Recipe
Ricotta Cheese Balls
Equipment
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Ingredients
- 12 ounces ricotta
- ½ cup frozen spinach, defrosted and drained
- 1 teaspoon Tuscan Sunset
- ¼ cup parmesan cheese
~~ Breading ~~
- 1 cup *flour
- 1 egg
- 1 cup Panko breadcrumbs
Instructions
- Mise En Place
- In a stand mixer, mix the cheeses together with the spinach and seasoning.
- Use a melon scooper or small ice cream scoop to make balls out of the mixture.
- Put the balls on a flexible cutting board and put them in the freezer for a half-hour.
- In the meantime, put flour in one bowl, white and yolk mixed together in another bowl, and the Panko breadcrumbs in the third bowl.
- Roll the slightly frozen balls first in the flour, shake most of it off, then roll in the egg, and finally roll in the panko breadcrumbs.
- Put them on the same flexible board and when you have finished them all, put them in the freezer on the board.
- Freeze them for at least one hour, or until they have frozen hard.
- Cut off a large enough amount of bag and put the frozen balls in the vacuum bag.
- Seal them on Vacuum and Seal.
- Write down what they are and put them in the freezer.
- To heat them, put them on a rack in the air fryer at 400 for about 10 minutes or until they have started to brown.
- Serve with Marinara sauce.
Nutrition
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