Ever since I started tofucado I have wanted to post my favorite thing ever in this world (besides kimchi, choucroute and the million other things that I always state are “my favorite thing ever”) and that is… cannelloni. Cannelloni are the staple of catalan food, you eat them every week, you eat them during christmas, on sundays, you eat them every time your best friends comes home, you always order them in resturants and you eat them so often your parents start to worry about you. But yeah, that’s the beauty of cannelloni. And I thought that this year, as lame as it has been, tofucado deserved to finally have a spinach & tofu ricotta cannelloni. Check out the full recipe right here:
https://youtu.be/PsT98R6KpEQ
Ingredients to make this delicious vegan tofu ricotta cannelloni
This recipe has three parts because I thought why the hell not, it’s christmas, let’s go home.
Tofu ricotta (& spinach)
- Tofu
- Spinach
- Herbs: Fines herbes, basil, salt & pepper
- Nutritional yeast
- Olive oil
Tomato sauce
- Tomatoes
- Onion & garlic
- Oregano, rosemary, salt & pepper
- Balsamic vinegar
- A tiny bit of agave syrup
- Olive oil
Bechamel
- Flour
- Nutmeg
- Milk
- Salt & pepper
- Butter
Then obviously, you’ll need some cannelloni pasta (in France you can mostly find the pasta already rolled up, but you can also use pasta layers and roll them yourself) and some cheese to put on top at the end and to get that delicious layer of grilled cheese !
Other holiday recipes!
If you want other ideas for the holidays, tofucado has already published a lot. From starters, to mains, to even desserts. And more will come next week so stay tuned (next week is dessert week!)
- Starters
- Beef wellington (today, this is still one of my favorite recipes to be ever featured on tofucado)
- Trio of parfaits
- 2 vegan spreads (mushroom pâté & smoked veggie pâté)
Vegan spinach & tofu ricotta cannelloni
Equipment
- Food processor
Ingredients
Tofu ricotta & spinach (the filling of the cannelloni)
- 1 pack firm tofu 500g
- 400 g fresh spinach
- 2 tbsp fines herbes
- 1 tbsp basil
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- Salt & pepper to taste
Tomato sauce
- 3 ripe tomatoes
- 1 onion
- 2-3 garlic cloves
- 1 tbsp rosemary
- 1 tbsp oregano
- 1 tsp agave syrup
- 2 tsp Balsamic vinegar
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- Salt & pepper to taste
Béchamel
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1 and 1/2 cups plant based milk
- 2 tsp nutmeg
- salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
Tofu ricotta & spinach
- In a food processor, add the tofu, herbs, nutritional yeast, salt & pepper and a bit of olive oil.
- Blitz for at least 60 seconds till you have a ricotta-ish consistency. Set aside
- Cook the spinach in a large wok with a bit of olive oil, salt & pepper. When the spinach are cooked, drain the liquid.
- Add the tofu ricotta to the spinach and mix thoroughly. This is your filling. Set aside.
Tomato sauce
- Dice the onion, garlic and tomatoes.
- In a pan, add some olive oil. When hot, cook the onion & garlic for 2-3 minutes.
- Add the tomatos, the herbs, the agave syrup & the balsamic vinegar and cook for 20-30 minutes.
- With a hand in mixer, blend the tomato sauce so it has a more liquid/purée consistency. Set aside.
Béchamel
- In a pot, add the butter and melt it at medium-low heat.
- Stir in the flour and continue to do so until the paste that butter&flour have created is fully cooked and starts to bubble. Make sure you don’t burn it!! This step usually takes around 2 minutes.
- Add the milk (reminder: it has to be hot!) and stir as the bechamels thickens.
- Bring the bechamel to a boil and then add the salt & pepper and the nutmeg! (don’t forget the nutmeg, it changes all the flavor)
- Lower the heat to the min and continue stirring for 2 minutes.
- The sauce can have different consistencies, I like mine to be more on the “Thick” side while remaining a bit liquid.
Assembling
- Depending on the type of cannelloni pasta you have you are either going to roll or fill them. I had to fill my cannelloni. The amount of filling we made is good enough for 21 cannelloni.
- In an oven safe pot, add some of the tomato sauce at the bottom. Put the cannelloni on top.
- Cover the cannelloni with more tomato sauce, then pour in the béchamel. Add cheese on top.
- Cook the cannelloni in the oven for at least 30 minutes (follow package instructions) or until the cheese is melted and grilled.
- Wait 5 minutes before serving, enjoy!
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