Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni

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This is a nice and basic, kid-friendly, cannelloni recipe that can easily be adjusted to your own tastes. The original recipe is actually quite light, despite the amount of cheese used. The Spinach filling is lacking in any strong flavor – great for picky children, but for those adults craving some more flavor, add a couple cloves of minced garlic to the spinach before cooking the spinach down. For the sauce, the lemon zest is an interesting addition– meyer lemon zest works nicely here as it’s not as pungent and intense as normal lemon zest, but the lemon zest isn’t a necessary addition to the sauce. The original recipe calls for 1 onion; I’d go with a small onion, or a little more than half of a medium-sized onion, unless you love a rather oniony tomato sauce. If you’d prefer more garlic flavor in the sauce, mince both cloves of garlic (or use a garlic press) and add them to the sautéed onions before adding in the tomatoes, bay leaf, basil, salt, and pepper. One thing to keep in mind: you don’t want to use all of the liquid you squeezed out from the spinach when mixing it with the egg and ricotta. You just want enough (about 1/4 cup / 60ml) to moisten the mixture some. Using all of the liquid from the spinach will result in a soupy mess, so do keep that in mind. For those not too keen on sauce, don’t be stingy here– you’ll need the entirety of the sauce for this recipe and you’ll want to make sure to cover every bit of the cannelloni shells before popping the pan in the oven. Any exposed shell will be crispy on the outside if not covered in sauce.

recipe updated Feb 22, 2022