Ravioli with spinach and ricotta cheese filling, in tomato cream sauce - meatless, Italian style pasta dish, with everything made completely from scratch! Learn how to make ravioli dough from scratch, how to shape ravioli, what filling to use and what sauce to make. Detailed instructions and step-by-step photos to show you how to make the ravioli with spinach and ricotta cheese filling at home!
I was originally planning to post a light-hearted and easy recipe about how to make a yummy plum drink, but I changed my mind and instead I took an endeavor of making fresh pasta ravioli from scratch. So I made super delicious spinach ravioli with ricotta cheese filling in a creamy tomato sauce. Here is my recipe featured on SeriousEats Weekend Cook and Tell: Fresh Pasta. Very exciting!
Even though the below recipe on how to make ravioli has many steps, making fresh pasta ravioli is actually pretty easy, especially because you have a very detailed tutorial that I created below. I have created and tested the below recipe, to make sure I have the exact proportions for the ravioli dough (pastry), so if you follow my steps precisely, you will create a wonderful ravioli dish that will impress your family and/or guests.
The most important part here is to roll your ravioli dough very thinly - that's the secret to great tasting ravioli! To roll it thinly, the dough should have just the right proportion of water to flour, which I denoted in my ingredients section below. It is important to let ravioli dough sit for an hour, covered in plastic wrap, so that the gluten does its job, and the resulting dough is nice and elastic enough for you to work with.
And, finally, I think it's great to learn how to make your own ravioli, because then you can endlessly experiment with fillings instead of just buying what grocery stores offer you. I am personally never impressed with the selection of pre-made ravioli in stores, so that's primary reason why I learned to make my own.
Below are some step-by-step photos illustrating major steps on how to make ravioli from scratch. The actual recipe is below the photos. Make sure to scroll down all the way for the complete recipe.
Ravioli Dough Ingredients
1 ¼ cups flour
1 egg
¼ cup hot water
¼ teaspoon salt
How to make ravioli dough from scratch
First, make the ravioli dough according to the recipe instructions below and let it sit for 1 hour.
- Mix flour with salt.
- Stir water with egg until well mixed.
- In a bowl, combine flour and egg-water mixture together and mix until well incorporated. Knead the ravioli dough until well-textured and firm. The dough should not be too wet or too sticky. It should only stick to itself, but not to your hands. However, it should not be too dry, either.
- Make the dough into a ball, cover with plastic wrap. Let the ravioli dough stand for 1 hour at room temperature before using. This allows gluten to work.
How to make spinach and ricotta cheese filling
- Heat olive oil on medium heat, add spinach and cook covered, stirring occasionally, until spinach wilted, about 15 minutes.
- Cook for 5 or 10 more minutes uncovered until all liquid evaporates.
- Chop cooked spinach finely and move to a bowl. Add Parmesan cheese and ricotta cheese, salt to taste and mix well. Add more salt if necessary.
How to make ravioli from scratch
- Divide the ravioli dough (instructions on how to make ravioli dough from scratch are above) into 2 equal halves and roll each half into a very thin sheet with a rolling pin.
- Make sure to have flour on hand and dust the working surface or rolling pan when necessary, because the dough will be sticky. It's important that the ravioli dough be rolled very thinly (paper-thin), otherwise ravioli will be too solid when cooked, because dough expands during cooking. Also it will be really hard to use the ravioli mold if the dough is not thin enough.
- Once you rolled sheets of dough, shape individual raviolis. To shape ravioli, I use a very handy device, Ravioli mould/tray, which works great! I purchased it at William-Sonoma, you can see the picture of it below:
How to shape ravioli using the mold
- Dust the working mold tray with flour
- Lay a thin layer of ravioli dough on the tray
- Press the ravioli dough in the holes of the mold
- Fill the holes of ravioli dough with the spinach ricotta cheese filling, without overfilling
- Cover with another layer of ravioli dough, which should lay flat all the way across the mould
- Using the rolling pins or your fingers, press the upper layer of ravioli dough against the lower layer, close and cut the ravioli
- Overturn the mold tray to let the ravioli fall out
Below photos illustrate these steps:
You can take the scraps of the dough and add them to your covered dough for future rolling.
When you are done shaping ravioli, bring a big pot of water to boil, add ravioli and cook for 5 minutes, then drain. Or, alternatively, freeze ravioli until you're ready to cook them.
How to make tomato cream sauce
- Heat olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Chop tomatoes and garlic and add to the pan. Cook covered for about 10 minutes until tomatoes soften.
- Add white wine and chopped thyme. Bring to boil and cook uncovered for 5 more minutes until half of liquid evaporates. Remove from heat, let it cool for a bit.
Then transfer to blender and puree the tomato mixture. Transfer the puree back to the pan, reheat to medium heat and add heavy cream. Stir until well incorporated.
Cut each grape tomato in half and add all of them to the pan with the tomato cream sauce. Salt to taste and and more chopped thyme if needed. Cook for 5 more minutes.
To serve, add cooked ravioli to the sauce at the last minute. Allow both ravioli and the sauce achieve same temperature. When serving on plates, garnish with thyme.
More ravioli recipes
[catlist name=Ravioli numberposts=-1 excludeposts=this]
Spinach Ravioli with Ricotta Cheese Filling, in Tomato Cream Sauce
Ingredients
Spinach and ricotta cheese ravioli filling:
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 10 oz spinach
- ½ cup Parmesan cheese shredded
- ¾ cup ricotta cheese
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Tomato cream sauce:
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 tomatoes
- 2 garlic cloves
- 5 sprigs fresh thyme
- ¼ cup white wine
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 2 cups grape tomatoes yellow and red
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
Make ravioli dough from scratch:
- Mix flour with salt.
- Stir water with egg until well mixed.
- In a bowl, combine flour and egg-water mixture together and mix until well incorporated. Knead the dough until well-textured and firm. The dough should not be too wet or too sticky. It should only stick to itself, but not to your hands. However, it should not be too dry, either. Make the dough into a ball, cover with plastic wrap. Let the dough stand for 1 hour at room temperature before using. This allows gluten to work.
How to make ravioli cheese filling:
- Heat olive oil on medium heat, add spinach and cook covered, stirring occasionally, until spinach wilted, about 15 minutes.
- Cook for 5 or 10 more minutes uncovered until all liquid evaporates.
- Chop cooked spinach finely and move to a bowl. Add Parmesan cheese and ricotta cheese, salt to taste and mix well. Add more salt if necessary.
How to assemble ravioli using ravioli mold:
- After the ravioli dough has been resting at room temperature for 1 hour, divide the ravioli dough (instructions on how to make ravioli dough from scratch are above) into 2 equal halves and roll each half into a very thin sheet with a rolling pin. Make sure to have flour on hand and dust the working surface or rolling pan when necessary, because the dough will be sticky. It’s important that the ravioli dough be rolled very thinly (paper-thin), otherwise ravioli will be too solid when cooked, because dough expands during cooking. Also it will be really hard to use the ravioli mold if the dough is not thin enough.
- Once you rolled sheets of dough, shape individual raviolis. To shape ravioli, I use a very handy device, ravioli mould/tray, which works great! Step-by-step photos are above the recipe box.
- Here is how to use Ravioli mould:1) dust the working tray with flour2) lay a thin layer of pastry on the tray3) press in the holes4) fill the holes with the filling, without overfilling5) cover with another layer of ravioli dough, which should lay flat all the way across the mould6) using the rolling pins or your fingers, press, close and cut the ravioli7) overturn the tray to let the ravioli come out
- When you are done shaping ravioli, bring a big pot of water to boil, add ravioli and cook for 5 minutes, then drain. Or, alternatively, freeze ravioli until you’re ready to cook them.
How to make tomato cream sauce:
- Heat olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Chop 2 tomatoes and garlic and add to the pan. Cook covered for about 10 minutes until tomatoes soften.
- Add white wine and chopped thyme. Bring to boil and cook uncovered for 5 more minutes until half of liquid evaporates. Remove from heat, let it cool for a bit.
- Then transfer to blender and puree the tomato mixture. Transfer the puree back to the pan, reheat to medium heat and add heavy cream. Stir until well incorporated.
- Cut each grape tomato in half and add all of them to the pan with the tomato cream sauce. Salt to taste and and more chopped thyme if needed. Cook for 5 more minutes.
- To serve, add cooked ravioli to the sauce at the last minute. Allow both ravioli and the sauce achieve same temperature. When serving on plates, garnish with thyme.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclaimer:
The nutritional information on this website is only an estimate and is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed. It should not be used as a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
Amy
Can the sauce be made ahead of time and reheated?
Julia
Yes, you can make the sauce ahead and reheat it!
Jackie
This looks amazing. Is it possible to make the sauce ahead of time? Maybe the sauce base, and when ready to use reheat and add the cream?
Sydney
Hi! This looks amazing! I was wondering if I need to drain the ricotta cheese?
Carin
This was delicious, but I wouldn’t add cold cream to the hot tomato sauce again- it instantly looks grainy/curdled. (Still tastes good though.) Instead I’d add the cream to the slightly cooler sauces, and then slowly heat it all together. Thanks for the recipe!
Melissa
My mom always told me a little saying red into white makes it turn out alright! So don’t mix the cream to tomato, but add the tomato to the warm cream.
Z
!
Rocio
At first i thought it was going to taste a lot like egg, but once boiled they were perfect!
Neema Patel
This recipe is super, freaking delicious. Thank you so much for sharing. It is so light and packed with goodness. Pillows of yumminess.
Mary
The sauce was delicious and the filling was great. My 4 and 6 year old loved it. Would make this again for sure!
*I used a different pasta recipe because it needed to be gluten free.
danielle
I just used the filling recipe and it turned out pretty good. the only thing I will change next time is the olive oil. I hate the taste of olive oil and you could really taste it in these. I used my own dough recipe and a kitchen aid pasta roller attachment.
Anne
Holy cow. My girls gave me the kitchen aid pasta attachment fir Mother’s Day. Since I am in quarantine I thought let’s go. I had a ravioli tray I bought in Italy in 2001 and never used. Tonight was the night. I confess I used a different dough recipe but the rest was all yours. We devoured it. What a great combination and a great way to spend a rainy windy day at home. I highly recommend this recipe
anne
how many people does it serve?
Katrina
Exceptional. It was easy to make and thank you for emphasising the importance of rolling the dough out to be paper thin. The sauce was wonderful. I didn’t purée the tomatoes and garlic as we like it in chunks. I baked the ravioli with the tomato cream sauce and it was delightful. Thank you and will gladly make again.
katarina
what flour is used here?
Hemi
Love how extremely detailed you are! Thank you sooo much!
I did want to ask, I plan on making this for dinner for 3 people with asparagus and garlic bread. I noticed your serving size said 4 servings but then noticed this recipe yields 12 pieces of ravioli. If I’m being honest lol I could eat 8 pieces alone I feel. Could you tell me please if it would be smart for me to just double all the ingredients for our needs or is this enough for 3 adults and I am just overthinking?
It won’t be a lot of asparagus just a few pieces per person and 1 palm sized piece of garlic bread per person. Thank you, let me know!
Emma Gibbor
We were so excited that it worked out!! Easy and fun to make and absolutely delicious!