Like cannelloni but different.
When we’re out for dinner at an Italian restaurant, I often get a pasta meal. I like to try different ones but I do have my favourites. One of which is cannelloni. You can’t beat the spinach and ricotta filling wrapped inside delectable pasta shells. I’ve often wanted to make this but the thought of attempting to fill these daunts me – far too fiddly. I can’t remember where I stumbled upon the recipe to make rotolo but thought it was a much easier way to cook a cannelloni-type meal.
From what I know, rotolo is not a well known Italian meal outside of Italy. The main idea of rotolo is to poach the rolled pasta sheets filled with a meat filling. This is, however, a simpler way to make a rotolo that is so delicious. Basically, if you love cannelloni you’ll love this recipe. It will definitely be a winner with the family if you’re after a meat-free meal on the dinner rotate. When baked, the crunchy bits of the pasta adds texture to this meal which you don’t typically get from cannelloni. After all, who doesn’t like a little crunchiness for dinner!
One thing I learnt from making this recipe. It’s important to squeeze out the excess water from the spinach once defrosted so don’t skip this part of the process. The first time I made this meal I didn’t squeeze out the water. The result was a ricotta spinach mixture that was hard to work with as it spread out too much, therefore, making the pasta tubes hard to roll and cut to size. Make sure you don’t skip this step as it truly is vital!
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Spinach & Ricotta Rotolo
Ingredients
- 8 fresh lasagne sheets, 15cm/6" x 11cm/4.5"
- 1/2 cup Mozarella cheese, grated
- Parmesan cheese, freshly grated, for serving (optional)
Filling
- 250 g spinach, frozen pre chopped
- 700 g ricotta cheese
- 2 Eggs
- 2/3 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed
- pinch nutmeg powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- black pepper
Tomato Sauce
- 700 ml passata sauce, (also known as tomato puree)
- 1 brown onion, diced
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- handful basil leaves, (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
Tomato Sauce
- In a medium sized saucepan, add the olive oil, onion and garlic. Saute until tender. Add the tomatoes and chopped basil leaves. Simmer for 10 minutes and then season with salt and pepper to taste.
- In a 22cm x 17cm ovenproof pan add all tomato sauce except for 3/4 cup which will be used to drizzle over the dish at the end.
Filling
- Defrost the spinach in the microwave on high for 2 minutes.
- Squeeze all the excess water out of the spinach using your hands, then place in a large bowl.
- Add remaining Filling ingredients and mix well to combine.
Assembling
- Take your lasagne sheet and chop in half across the longest length.
- Take one piece and fill with approximately 3 tablespoons of filling across the longest length. Roll up starting from the end closest to you. Finish with the seal down.
- Continue with remaining lasagne sheets.
- Cut rolls into 3 (so each piece is 3.5 - 5cm (1.5 - 2") wide.
- Place the rolls into the tomato sauce with the filling facing up.
- Drizzle the reserved sauce over the rotolo and in particular between as many of the rolls as you can. Bake for 20 minutes.
- Remove from oven and scatter the mozzarella over. Return to oven for 10 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly and golden.
- Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.
Notes
- This is a fiddly meal to make but worth the effort as tastes wonderful.
- Serve with garlic bread, garden salad or have just as it is without anything else!
- If you don't have passata (tomato puree) available, use instead 2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes and 1/2 cup of water.