In this post, we will show you how we make our Spinach & Cream Cheese Ravioli, featuring home-made egg pasta dough. We serve the ravioli on a bed of fresh crunchy spinach with lemon butter and cream sauce!

Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli is supposedly the most popular filled pasta in the world. Traditionally made with just spinach, full-fat ricotta and a pinch of nutmeg, this is a simple, healthy and delicious filling. We skipped the nutmeg, added a good amount of lemon zest and parmesan for extra flavour and proceeded to fill and shape ravioli in a traditional fashion. You may also choose to use ricotta instead of cream cheese (we almost always have cream cheese in the fridge so for us it's an obvious option).

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For many of us, shop-bought stuffed pasta is one of the easiest and quickest meals we can think of when we need to eat in a hurry. But are you ever impressed? Do you ever make yummy noises eating filled pasta from a packet? We almost never do (with an exception of DELLUGO Beetroot & Goat's Cheese Fiorelli available from Ocado in the UK), so we started making our own long time ago.

No, making filled pasta from scratch will not be very quick! You will make your own pasta dough, rest it, roll it, make the filling, then shape the pasta and only then cook it. The good news is, you can make a big batch and freeze them to use when you're in a hurry.

How to Freeze Home-Made Ravioli?

First, arrange your ravioli (or any other filled pasta for that matter) in a single layer on large floured trays. Place the trays in the freezer for 3-4 hours until they are fully frozen. Then take them out and transfer to bags or freezer-friendly boxes to save space. How long you can keep them in the freezer depends largely on the filling, but you are best to eat them within 2-3 months from freezing.

Don't defrost before cooking them. Simply drop them in boiling salted water and cook for a minute longer than you would with freshly made pasta.

How to Make Spinach & Cream Cheese Ravioli at Home?

If you've never made pasta before, we have two articles here to get you started. You will find out more about ingredients that are best used for various pasta doughs, the methods of pasta making and shaping:

To Make Pasta:

Place the 00 flour onto a kitchen surface and make a well in the centre. Crack the eggs into it and gradually mix with your hands. Knead the dough until the dough is soft, elastic and pliable. This will take about 10 minutes. If your dough is too dry, add a tablespoon of water. If it's too wet and sticky, add a bit of flour.

Wrap a ball of dough in clingfilm and leave the pasta to rest for 30-60 minutes at room temperature.

Divide the pasta dough into 4. One-piece at a time (keeping other pieces wrapped to avoid drying out) roll out the pasta into a long thin strip about 1mm in thickness, cut the strip in half to make it more manageable. We use and love our Marcato Atlas Pasta Machine.

To Make the Filling:

Boil a kettle of water. Place the spinach in a large colander and pour the boiling water all over to wilt it. Leave to cool slightly. When cool enough to handle, squeeze as much water out of the spinach as possible. You should be left with a large handful of compressed spinach.

Finely chop the spinach. Then mix in with cream cheese, lemon zest and garlic and season with salt and pepper. Alternatively, place all the filling ingredients in a food processor (we love Kenwood) and blend into a smooth creamy paste.

Fill, Shape & Cook the Pasta:

Place or pipe teaspoons of the spinach filling in a line down the centre of one of the rolled pasta strips about 4-5cm apart. Place the other strip directly on top draping the sheet into space between filling to make sure not much air is trapped in between. Press down between the mounds of filling to seal. Using a sharp knife, a ravioli stamp or a fluted cutter, cut even-sized squares with the filling in the middle of the ravioli. Place them on a lightly dusted board/ tray (we use semolina flour for dusting). You can spray the remaining offcuts of dough with water, knead again and re-roll.

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Carefully drop the ravioli into the pan. Shake the pan by the handles gently to ensure ravioli don't stick to the bottom or each other. Cook for approx. 3-4 minutes.

Make the Lemon Butter Sauce:

Heat the butter in a small saucepan on low heat. Add the lemon zest and a tablespoon of lemon juice and infuse for 30 seconds. Add the double cream (it will quickly thicken), then add 1-2 tablespoon of pasta water and cook just enough to warm it up. Take it off heat. Stir in the grated parmesan and season with salt and pepper.

Serve your Spinach & Cream Cheese Ravioli on a bed of fresh spinach with a drizzle of Lemon Butter Sauce and some extra parmesan on top!

If you've enjoyed our version of a true Italian classic, Spinach & Cream Cheese Ravioli, please let us know in the comments below.

If you're looking for more information on home-made pasta, have a look at:

Otherwise, we have lots of home-made pasta recipe that we think we can tempt you with:

Home-Made Spinach & Cream Cheese Ravioli with Lemon Butter Sauce

In this post, we will show you how we make our Spinach & Cream Cheese Ravioli, made with home-made egg pasta dough. We serve the ravioli on a bed of fresh crunchy spinach with lemon butter and cream sauce!

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Prep Time 40

Cook Time 5

Resting Time: 30

Total Time 1 15

Course Dinner, Lunch, Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Servings generous portions

Calories 740 kcal

Equipment

Pasta Machine

Ingredients

For the Pasta:

200 g 00 flour plus extra for dusting
2 eggs medium

For the Filling:

150 g spinach
150 g cream cheese
30 g parmesan grated
½ lemon zest only
½ garlic clove minced or very finely chopped

For Lemon Butter Sauce:

30 g butter
½ lemon zest + 1 tablespoon of juice
60 ml double cream
10 g parmesan grated