Name: Instant Mawa with Ricotta Cheese
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 20 min
Ingredients: 750 grams ricotta cheese (fresh); 9 tablespoon milk powder (full cream); 9 tablespoon double cream (heavy cream); 3 tablespoon ghee

This instant mawa with ricotta cheese is my shortcut for making soft, crumbly homemade khoya without boiling milk for hours. In fact, it takes less than 20 minutes. Full-fat ricotta, milk powder, cream and ghee are cooked down until thick, rich and grainy - perfect for Indian sweets like halwa, barfi and ghughra, and useful in rich savoury dishes too.

You can also make homemade khoya with milk powder.

Recipe Summary: Instant Mawa with Ricotta Cheese

✅ Recipe Name: Ricotta Mawa, Ricotta Khoya
🕒 Ready In: around 20 minutes
👪 Serves: 10 servings (easy to scale)
🍽 Calories: 211 per serving
🥣 Main Ingredients: Ricotta cheese, milk powder, double cream, ghee
📖 Dietary Info: Make-a-head friendly, vegetarian
⭐ Why You'll Love It: It gives you homemade mawa without hours of stirring milk. You can make it on the stovetop or in the microwave, use it straight away while soft or store it.

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Recipe Summary: Instant Mawa with Ricotta Cheese
Why I Make Mawa at Home
Ricotta Mawa vs Milk Powder Mawa
The 4 Ricotta Mawa Ingredients
Let's Make Ricotta Mawa Together
Storage
How To Use Ricotta Mawa
📖 Recipe

Note – This recipe has been updated from our recipe archives with further recipe testing. First published in June 2012.

Why I Make Mawa at Home

Mawa, also known as khoya, is one of those ingredients that appears again and again in mithai and Indian desserts. Essentially, it's a cooked down milk solid traditionally made by simmering whole milk slowly until most of the water evaporates and the milk solids are left behind.

Mawa adds richness, milkiness and that slightly grainy texture you cannot get from cream alone.

I use homemade mawa in so many J Cooking Odyssey recipes, either made from ricotta cheese or from milk powder. It is part of how I build Indian sweets at home, especially when fresh shop-bought mawa is not easy to find.

This instant ricotta mawa recipe gives you a practical homemade version using full-fat ricotta, milk powder, double cream and ghee. It is not exactly the same as traditional slow-reduced mawa, but it gives you a very useful soft, crumbly khoya for sweets and rich Indian dishes.

Ricotta Mawa vs Milk Powder Mawa

On my blog, I use two main homemade mawa methods: this ricotta mawa and my homemade khoya with milk powder.

Both are useful, but I do not use them in exactly the same way.

Ricotta mawa is softer, crumbly and slightly grainy. I like it best for sweets where that texture works in your favour, such as gajar halwa, milky dodha barfi, soft and creamy coconut barfi, aate ka halwa with mawa and mawa ghughra.

Milk powder mawa is smoother, stickier and more interchangeable. I use it when I want a smoother base or a richer dough-like texture, such as in mawa peda, gulab jamun with khoya, kesar mawa na penda and kala jamun.

Some recipes can use either, depending on the texture you want. For example, eggless mawa cake works well with homemade mawa, but the mawa should be fairly dry and crumbly so it does not add too much moisture to the cake batter.

If I need mawa for a sweet and I am not sure which version to use, milk powder mawa is usually the more flexible option. If I specifically want a grainier, crumbly texture, I choose ricotta mawa.

The 4 Ricotta Mawa Ingredients

Full-fat ricotta cheese

I only use full-fat ricotta for the best texture. Lower-fat ricotta can be more watery and less rich, which means the mawa may take longer to cook down and will not taste as creamy.

I use fresh, creamy full-fat ricotta cheese - the kind sold in supermarket tubs. It should look soft, moist and spoonable, almost like a grainier mascarpone.

Avoid very dry, crumbly or heavily grainy ricotta-style cheese for this recipe. Some Turkish and international grocery shops sell ricotta-style or lor-style cheese that is much thicker and drier. That type is lovely for other uses, but it will not cook down into the same soft, creamy mawa texture here.

Use any leftover ricotta to make Ricotta Cheese Peda, this Instant Kalakand with 2 ingredients or One Pot Ricotta Lemon Pasta.

Milk powder

Milk powder helps absorb moisture from the ricotta and gives a stronger milky flavour. Use full-cream milk powder if you can.

Double cream

Double cream adds richness and helps the ricotta mawa taste more like khoya rather than just cooked cheese. US readers can use heavy cream.

Ghee

Ghee adds flavour and helps the mawa cook into a soft, rich mass. I tend to use homemade ghee (I'm sure you can sense a theme here) or shop-bought ghee.

Let's Make Ricotta Mawa Together

The stovetop gives you the most control because you can see the ricotta mixture changing from loose and creamy to thick, grainy and crumbly.

The microwave method is still useful, especially when you want less hands-on stirring.

three blocks of fresh ricotta cheese, ghee, cream and milk powder in a pan on the stove.

Add everything to the pan: Add the ricotta cheese, milk powder, double cream and ghee to a heavy-based pan. At this point it will look separate and unmixed.

Loose and runny mixture of ricotta cheese mawa in a pan.

Stir until melted and runny: Cook on low to medium heat, stirring well. The mixture will loosen first and look creamy, melted and quite runny. This is normal.

Keep cooking until it thickens: Continue stirring as the moisture cooks off. The mixture will start to look thicker, grainier and heavier in the pan. Stir more often now so it does not catch.

Creamy and grainy fresh ricotta cheese in a pan.

Cook until it forms a soft mass: The mawa is ready when it comes together in one thick, soft, crumbly mass and starts pulling away from the pan. Remove it from the hot pan so it does not keep drying out.

The finished ricotta mawa should be soft, thick, crumbly and slightly grainy. It should not be runny or wet but it should not be completely dry and hard either.

Storage

Cool the ricotta mawa completely before storing.

Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week.

You can also freeze it for up to 3 months. Defrost in the fridge before using.

If the mawa feels slightly moist after chilling, cook it for a few minutes in a pan before adding it to a recipe.

How To Use Ricotta Mawa

Ricotta mawa is useful anywhere you want soft, crumbly khoya texture without spending hours reducing milk.

I especially like it in recipes where a slightly grainy dairy texture works in your favour. It can add richness to Indian sweets, body to festive bakes, and a gentle milky creaminess to special-occasion savoury dishes.

For sweets, think of ricotta mawa as a good choice for recipes where the texture does not need to be completely smooth. It works well in halwa-style sweets such as rajgira sheera, where mawa adds a subtle graininess to the soft halwa texture.

It is also useful in paneer and mawa sweets where a dense, rich texture is part of the charm, such as pistachio paneer rolls or beetroot kalakand.

For Gujarati mithai, ricotta mawa can work in recipes where you want richness and a crumbly finish, such as mohanthal or dhilo mohanthal. Just make sure the mawa is not too wet before adding it.

Mawa is not only for sweets either. A small amount can make savoury curries feel richer, thicker and more luxurious.

Use it in dishes such as khoya kaju, where khoya is part of the main gravy, or stir a little into rich paneer curries such as paneer tikka masala, shahi paneer or Punjabi matar paneer when you want extra body and creaminess.

For savoury recipes, use ricotta mawa sparingly. It should make the gravy feel richer, not sweet or heavy.

As always if you make this recipe, be sure to leave me a comment, rate this recipe and tag me on Instagram @jcookingodyssey or #jcookingodyssey. I love seeing all your photos of my recipe recreations!

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