Eggless Spinach Cheese Ravioli
This is a very simple, but amazing dish of pasta stuffed with spinach and ricotta/mozzarella cheese. Most ravioli we get in restaurants and grocery stores have eggs in them – either in the pasta or in the stuffing. We wanted to try it without eggs since we know pasta doesn’t really need eggs and our family typically tries to eat without eggs. This was a labor-intensive recipe, but simple. My daughter did most of the work. The results were amazing delicious homemade ravioli, enough to feed 3 of us for dinner, and freeze a couple of servings for my daughter for a busy school night! Win-win-win!
Servings Prep Time
20-30pieces 1-2hours
Cook Time Passive Time
2mins per batch 30mins
Servings Prep Time
20-30pieces 1-2hours
Cook Time Passive Time
2mins per batch 30mins
Ingredients
  • 3cups all purpose flour
  • 2cups lukewarm watermay not use all
  • 5tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
  • 3tsp Salt
Stuffing Ingredients
  • 3-4cups fresh baby spinach
  • 1small carton ricotta cheese
  • 1/2cup mozzarella cheese
  • 2cloves garlic
  • 1tsp Salt
  • 1tsp crushed red pepper/black pepperadd more or less per taste
  • 1tsp oil
Sauce Ingredients
  • 8-10medium juicy tomatoesI used campari tomatoes, that are a little sweet
  • 1tsp Salt
  • 1tsp black pepper
  • 1clove garlic
  • 1tbsp Extra virgin olive oilevoo
Instructions
  1. Make dough with flour, salt, oil, adding the water little by little and knead for a few minutes until the dough is soft, and not sticky. Wrap in cling wrap and allow to rest for about 30 minutes.
  2. While the dough is resting, make the stuffing: Heat oil in a pan, add minced garlic, chopped spinach and cook till wilted. Add salt. Turn the heat off, mix in the cheeses, and set aside to cool.
  3. Start the sauce: Heat the evoo, add in garlic if using and saute without burning it, add the chopped tomatoes, salt and pepper and cook on low to medium heat for a few minutes. You may add basil adn other herbs if you’d like. The sauce is good to go as a delicate, light topping or garnish.
  4. To make the pasta, use a large wood board, or a flat surface such as a countertop. Divide the dough into 10 pieces. Cover the rest while working with one.
  5. Roll out the piece of dough as thin as possible, into a rough rectangle. Trim using a pizza cutter to get a perfect rectangle of about 6 inches wide. Place a tablespoon or teaspoon of filling along the long side, leaving gaps in between evenly. (We messed up making a video of this as she was doing it, so hopefully this makes sense.)
  6. Fold over one half of the sheet over the side where the filling is, and press down around each of the filling, removing as much as air as possible and sealing on 3 sides. Using a fork, make indents along 3 or all sides of the pockets. Using a pizza cutter, cut off each of the ravioli pockets, and place on a plate dusted with flour. The hard part is over! Now we are ready to cook them. Or at this point you can freeze them for later. Please see Recipe notes for freezing instructions
  7. Boil water with a bit of salt to cook the ravioli
  8. Drop in 3-4 pieces at a time when the water is boiling. The pasta will initially sink, and when cooked, will float up. Using a spider ladle, take them out. This is the easy part – only takes about 2 minutes per batch and is very quick.
  9. Your lovely ravioli is ready to be enjoyed!
Recipe Notes

Flour & Eggs:

We used all purpose flour, but I saw many sites using a mix of AP and whole wheat, AP flour and semolina flour, etc. I did have upma rava on hand, but wasn’t sure what the texture would be so ended up using just the AP flour. I also saw in some site that flaxseeds can be used in place of eggs, but didn’t try it this time. We were quite happy with the results, but flaxseeds probably adds some value in terms of good fats!

Notes:

We were experimenting with a new video tool, and completely failed to record the part where she was making the ravioli pockets and filling them. But there are plenty of videos out there, that show you how to!

We did the manual rolling out that needed a lot of muscles. If you make pasta regularly, a pasta machine would be a much better alternative to ensure even thickness.

When your pasta is rolled out to the ideal thickness, it turns transparent where the filling is when cooked, and it’s a good test.

Freezing:

Before cooking, but after stuffing, you can freeze the ravioli for later use. To do that, line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and keep the ravioli pieces on it in a single layer, and place in teh freezer for 30 minutes. They will then become solid and hard. You can then put them in an appropriate freezer container/bag without them sticking together. When ready to cook, take them out, and cook as instructed above.

Sources:

I googled and found many sources for the recipe, and came up with the ideal stuffing and pasta recipe.

Rolling out

Cooking ravioli