Friday Recipe: Ricotta & Spinach Cannelloni

Hot, cold, with salad or own their own I simply love Italian favourite ricotta and spinach cannelloni 

Whenever it's a special occasion, like a birthday or an anniversary, my husband always ask where I'd like to go to celebrate. The answer is easy: home. That's because I'm a fussy, strict vegetarian and he's the best chef going so why eat anywhere else? Plus he always makes my favourite - ricotta and spinach cannelloni. Hot, cold, on their own or with salad, I never tire of them. Now he's letting me share his family recipe so I hope you like them as much as I do...


Prep time 1 hour Resting time 2 hours
Cooking time 35-40 mins Serves 4

Ingredients 
1 kg spinach leaves
1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
500g passata
100ml cold water
250g ricotta
I egg
Butter, to grease baking tray
1 box dried cannelloni (around 30 tubes)
300ml extra thick double cream
100g Parmesan, grated

Wash the spinach leaves then cook them in 2 litres of boiling, salted water for 4 minutes. Drain and leave to cool.

Sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil over medium heat until softened and translucent.

Add the passata and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Slowly add the cold water until you have a thick sauce-like consistency, then simmer for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Roughly chop the cooled spinach and mix together with the ricotta. Season and stir in the egg.

Grease a baking tray with butter.

Now it’s the fun bit – filling the cannelloni with the spinach and ricotta mixture.
The quickest (and cleanest) way to do it is to use an icing bag to pipe the mixture into the dried cannelloni. Hold a canneloni tube in one hand and pipe until it’s full right to the end. If you don’t have a piping bag, spoon the filling into a ziplock plastic bag, snip off a corner, and proceed as above.

Spread a thin layer of the passata sauce in the bottom of a baking dish and then add the cannelloni tubes, making sure they touch each other.