Spinach And Ricotta Cannelloni Recipe: Deliciously Light And Easy To Make
In this cannelloni recipe, a few good ingredients allow you to cheat your way a little bit. I use a really good quality tomato passata (if you aren’t familiar with passata, take a look here) which means I can make a great tomato sauce with very little effort. If you want to cheat a little more, use your favourite shop bought tomato sauce. I also use a good creamy buffalo mozzarella cheese as a topping rather than making a cheese sauce as some cannelloni recipes do. Again, you can substitute any cheese you like that melts well here.
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon of olive oil
800mls/1˝ pint/3.5 cups of tomato passata
4 cloves garlic, crushed
Pinch of sugar
1 handful of fresh basil leaves (if you don’t have fresh basil, I like to use a heaped teaspoon of dried oregano. Obviously the flavour is different but I think it works better here than dried basil)
300g/10˝oz fresh or frozen spinach, cooked, chopped and excess water squeezed out.
375g/13oz/1˝ cups of ricotta cheese (regular cream cheese can be used here)
1 egg
6 tablespoons of grated parmesan
Dried (no pre-cook) cannelloni (about 16 tubes)
200g/7oz of buffalo mozzarella, thinly sliced
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas6.
2. Next make the tomato sauce. Heat the olive oil gently in a pan, add the garlic and soften for a couple of minutes.
3. Add the passata, herbs, sugar and salt and pepper and cook for about five minutes. Set aside.
4. In a large bowl, mix together the spinach, ricotta, egg and about half of the grated parmesan. Season with some salt and pepper.
5. Stuff the cannelloni tubes with the filling. You can do this with an icing bag if you want. I usually just use a small fork.
6. Spread a large ovenproof dish with a thin layer of tomato sauce. Cover with the stuffed cannelloni and pour over the tomato sauce. Spread with sliced mozzarella and the remaining parmesan. Cover with foil. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for a further 5-10 minutes
This cannelloni recipe will serve four people generously as a main course. I like to serve it with a green salad like this spinach salad with roasted shallots and parmesan. Take a look at my vegetable salad recipes page for some more ideas.
