Baked Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni Recipe (2024)

Fresh egg pasta sheets filled with creamy ricotta and spinach, in adelicious tomato sauce, topped with oozy mozzarella! These ricotta andspinach cannelloniare full of flavour! And the leftovers are amazing too!This is a classic veggie-bakedpasta dishthat never fails to satisfy.

This vegetarian cannelloni is made with fresh egg pasta sheets, so there's no messing about stuffingpasta rolls! I don't know about you but I don't have the time for that!

I've been making this dish for ages, even before we went veggie, it's afirm family favourite. It's easy to make but does take a little more time. The leftovers are great and for freezing making it a great family meal.

🛒 What You'll Need

There are two parts to this recipe, the sauce and the filling.

• For The Sauce

• For The Filling

• Pasta -I usefresh lasagne sheetsfor this recipe instead ofcannelloni tubes. You can usecannelloni pasta tubesif you like.
• Tomatoes- canned whole plum tomatoes will give you the best flavour for your sauce. You can also use chopped/diced tomatoes ortomato passata.
• Vegetables- You will also need brown onion, carrots, celery and garlic.
• Spinach-fresh spinachis best for this recipe but you can use frozen. I use baby spinach, I find that kids prefer the milder taste of the younger spinach but if you can get mature spinach then that works well too.
• Cheese -for thericotta fillingyou needricotta cheese,mozzarella cheeseand pecorino. I use full fat for all of them. I don't recommend using low-fat ricotta for this recipe but you can substitute it for low-fat.
• Herbs- I use dried oregano and dried bay leaves in the sauce and fresh basil in the filling. You can play around with these if you want. Fresh basil is great in the sauce as is fresh oregano.
• Other ingredients - you will also need olive oil, salt and freshly groundblack pepper

🔪 How to MakeSpinach Ricotta Cannelloni

This is just a quick visual guide, please see the full ingredient list and detailed instructions in the recipe card below.

1. Make the sauce-cook the onion, celery and carrots until soft. Add the dried oregano and garlic, cook for a minute then add two cans of plum tomatoes. Add two dried bay leaves and one tablespoon of balsamic vinegar. Leave to simmer until thickened. Remove the bay leaves before using the sauce.

2. Make the filling- wilt thebaby spinach leavesin afrying pan, and leave to cook for acouple of minutes. Once wilted leave to cool slightly before you squeeze out asmuch wateras you can. Roughly chop thecooked spinachthen add it to alarge bowlwith the ricotta, grated pecorino, chopped basil, garlic and nutmeg. Season with salt and pepper and stir well.

3. Assemble the cannelloni- lay a sheet of pasta on a clean board. Add two tablespoons of thericotta mixtureto one end of the pasta sheet. Roll the pasta to make a tube. Repeat until you've used up all the filling.

4. Bake the cannelloni- add half the sauce to abaking dish, and spread it out using a spoon to cover the base of theoven dish. Place thefilled cannelloniontop of the tomato saucein asingle layer. Cover the cannelloni with theremaining saucethen scatter some torn mozzarella over the sauce. Bake, uncovered in the oven for about 20 -30 minutes. Leave to cool slightly before serving.

👩‍🍳 Recipe Tips

• Pasta- I find usingfresh pasta sheetsthe easiest and fastest way to make cannelloni. The other thing about usingfresh lasagna sheetsis that you get the best, crispiest edges. I think they taste better than the dried cannelloni rolls, but that's a taste preference. You can use the dried pasta tubes if you want, thebest wayto fill those is to use apiping bag.
• Pro-Tip- always have a couple of extra sheets of lasagne, sometimes sheets crack or break, and it can happen. If you have leftover lasagne sheets they will keep in the fridge for a couple of days. You could always use up any leftovers in alasagne.
• Sauce -When the sauce is cooked I blend it with a handheld blender, this will make the sauce nice and smooth. You can skip this if you want. I find that the smoother the sauce the less chance of the kids finding out that there are carrots in there!
• Spinach- I recommend squeezing as muchexcess liquidout of the spinach as possible. If you skip this you will end up withexcess waterin the cannelloni.

🔄 Variations

• Try aspinach and ricotta pasta bake. Don't feel like filling those tubes? Make a pasta bake instead! You'll get all the same great flavour just in a pasta bake!
• Makestuffed shellsinstead, another family favourite and a very popular recipe on the blog. This is a little bit less work but still tastes great.
• Add anegg yolkto the filling for extra richness.

💭 FAQs

🍽 Try These Pasta Bakes Next

• Broccoli Pasta Bake - Creamy, cheesy and really tasty this is great for an easy weeknight dinner.
• Pesto Pasta Bake - a very tasty vegetarian pasta bake packed with hidden veggies! Great for getting the kids to eat more greens.
• Creamy Mushroom Pasta Bake - Pasta, mushrooms and kale in a creamy cheesy sauce baked with a crispy topping. This is perfect comfort food and a great weeknight dinner.

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