Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni is such a classic no fail recipe and when I say classic I mean old! You can make fresh pasta to make this recipe and simply roll the spinach cheese mix in but today I was truly happy to find that I had a box of cannelloni in the pantry! I think this is definitely from lock down stock 🙂 Regardless, lets make spinach ricotta cannelloni!
SPINACH RICOTTA CANNELLONI
The box had about 22 to 24 cannelloni tubes in and I used 22 the other 2 could not fit so there now I have 2 tubes! Try and use a large enough oven tray that can fit them all in. Every time I make cannelloni I use just a few and end up a pieces of tubes in different boxes.
In a large bowl, add the spinach with the rest of the filling ingredients, mix, season, taste for salt and pepper and then fill the tubes. I don't want to tell you why I am using a sandwich bag to fill the tubes because it's a long story! Whatever works.
There are very few people who don't like pasta and rightly so because it's a go to for most families and most of the recipes are simple, quick and all of them are delicious!
Okay, let's talk sauce language shall we?
Tomato Sauce
Whatever you do don't toss in a ready made store bough bottle of tomato for this recipe please! This food is so good, so good and homemade good that it would be sinful to buy the sauce. I guess that since you are making it in the first place you are making your own. It's really not a big job so when I say make it yourself I don't mean go out and grow your own tomatoes, canned tomatoes, organic or simply a good quality canned tomato.
Here are some pasta recipes you might like;
- Mixed Pasta Recipe
- Chorizo Pasta
- Prawn Lime Pasta Recipe
- Saucy Meatball Pasta – Italian South African Recipe
- Chicken Thigh Marinade With Pasta
- Lasagna
Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni
Ingredients
- 250 grams cannelloni tubes about 22
- 2 cups Parmesan grated
TOMATO SAUCE
- 800 grams chopped/crushed tomato 2 regular cans
- 80 grams tomato paste 1 tbsp
- ½ cup water
- 1 onion finely chopped
- 2 small garlic cloves
- fresh basil
FILLING
- 750 grams frozen spinach
- 500 grams full fat ricotta cheese 2 x regular 250 tubs
- Parmesan cheese handful, grated
- 1 egg beaten
- Pinch of nutmeg spice
- pinch of salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a skillet and the onion and garlic. Cooking over medium heat until translucent.
- Add the fresh chili, tomato, salt and pepper. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes until thick.
FILLING
- Put the spinach in a large strainer, pour water over it if it's completely frozen and use a spoon to push the water out through the strainer. You should be left with damp spinach not dry you wont get every drop out. As long as you manage to drain it.
- Put the spinach in a bowl and add all the remaining filling ingredients.
BAKE
- Preheat oven to 180 C.
- Spread a little of the tomato sauce on the base of the dish.
FILLING THE TUBES
- Add as much filling as you can into whatever bag you using for filling it in. If using a sandwich bag, fill it, push the filling to one of the corners of the bag, use a scissors to make a small slit on the corner to allow the filling to come out as it would in a piping bag,
- Fill all the tubes, lay them in the oven dish over the first layer of sauce.
TOMATO SAUCE
- Pour the remaining sauce over all the cannelloni tubes once filled.
- Bake covered with foil for 20 minutes.
- Remove the foil, top it off with Parmesan cheese and return it to the oven for another 10 to 15 minutes until the top is golden brown to your liking.
- Serve with fresh basil and a side green salad.
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