Veggie filled zucchini ravioli stuffed with ricotta and baked over a simple marinara sauce with burst cherry tomatoes. | Gluten Free + Grain Free + Low Carb
Can we all just take a moment to appreciate the summer produce gift that is zucchini.
I mean…honestly. You can eat is sweet and you can eat is savoury. You can eat it in a million and one ways and there will still be new way to eat zucchini.
Not to mention it’s basically entirely made up of water so there are next to no calories in it. Which is really great because then my brain takes that fact as licence to go HAM on the cheese….because it’s all about balance…right?
Case and point: These three cheese veggie filled zucchini ravioli stuffed with creamy ricotta and topped with mozzarella & parmesan.
No regrets here, my friends. No regrets.
How to Make: Zucchini Ravioli
There are a couple of ways you can go about to make your zucchini slices. The easiest way is to use a handheld Mandoline slicer so that you can adjust to the thickness you need. If you don’t have one of those you can also use a julienne peeler like this one to get long thin, pasta like noodles.
The key is to get the zucchini to be thin enough that you can roll it up without breaking, but still thick enough to hold up when stuffed and folded with cheese.
Making the ‘ravioli’ parcels is actually pretty easy. You only need three strips to work with. Lay out the first two strips on a clean surface making a lower case ‘t’. Take the third strip and line it up with the bottom strip so your ‘t’ formation remains. After adding your ricotta cheese mixture to the centre of the strips just fold up the sides one at a time until your zucchini looks like the picture below.
Lay the zucchini parcels across a roasting dish prepared with marinara and top with the cherry tomatoes and sprinkle with your remaining cheeses.
After a 20 minute roast in the oven followed by a quick broil to finish off you’re all set to go!
So yeah!
Zucchini….is there anything it can’t do? I think not.
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Zucchini Ravioli
Veggie filled zucchini ravioli stuffed with ricotta and baked over a simple marinara sauce with burst cherry tomatoes. | Gluten Free + Grain Free + Low Carb
Ingredients
- 1 cup | 257 grams marinara sauce
- 3 medium zucchini, washed + dried with the ends cut off
- 1 tablespoon | 15 ml olive oil
- 2 cups | 60 grams fresh spinach, washed
- 2 cloves | 1 heaping teaspoon garlic, crushed or minced
- 1 cup | 250 grams whole milk ricotta
- 2 tablespoons fresh basil, sliced + more for garnishing
- 1 cup | 150 grams cherry tomatoes
- 1/2 cup | 56 grams mozzarella, shredded or broken into chunks
- 2 tablespoons | 10 grams grated parmesan
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F/220°C.
- Spread out the marinara sauce across the bottom of a large roasting dish.
- Make your zucchini noodles with a mandolin or vegetable peeler. Peel the zucchini into 1/4 inch wide strips. Lay them out on a paper towel lined surface and sprinkle with salt. Set aside while you prep the rest of your ingredients.
- Add the olive oil to a medium sized skillet and bring to a medium low heat. Add the spinach and cook until wilted. Add the garlic to the pan and cook for a minute or two until fragrant - stirring the whole time to keep from burning. Turn off the heat and remove the pan from the hot burner.
- Add the spinach and garlic to a bowl along with the ricotta and chopped basil. Stir to combine.
- Return to your sliced zucchini and blot off the excess moisture.
- Take three strips of zucchini at a time and lay them out on a clean surface. Lay out the first two strips to form a lower case 't'. Line the top zucchini strip with the bottom layer. Spoon about 1 tablespoon of the ricotta mixture onto the centre of the zucchini. Fold the ends of the strips over the ricotta mixture to create little 'ravioli' parcels. Continue with the rest of the zucchini/cheese.
- Transfer the folded zucchini to the roasting dish and place on top of the marinara/tomatoes. Scatter the tomatoes over the top along with the mozzarella & parmesan.
- Bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Broil an extra 2 minutes to blister the tomatoes and then remove.
- Let cool for about 5 minutes before serving & enjoy! Sprinkle with additional basil if needed.
Notes
Both the zucchini & tomatoes naturally have a high water content so don't be surprised if your finished product comes with some extra liquid in the dish. If you don't like it you can either spoon out some of the extra liquid or blot it with a paper towel.
Nutrition Information
Serving Size:
zucchini raviolis Calories: 193Saturated Fat: 6gCholesterol: 35mgSodium: 422mgCarbohydrates: 10gFiber: 2gSugar: 6gProtein: 11gThis post contains affiliate links. I only post links for products I personally use and believe in. If you make a purchase on Amazon after clicking one of my links, I receive a small commission and the price you pay is not affected. Thank you!
K says
Way off the beaten path for “healthy” food but can you fry these? My daughter had fried ravioli at a friends house on New Years Eve and I promised her we would attempt to find a way to recreate something similar but gluten and dairy free. I already have a ricotta recipe we’ve been using for lasagna using pumpkin tofu. Just trying to decide what to put it in. 😂
Sarah Nevins says
I’m not sure but I don’t think that they’d fry too well – at least not without breading them in some sort of breadcrumb mixture first. Zucchinis hold so much water I can see then being too soggy for frying. If you’re up for experimenting, I think you might have some success if you dip the raviolis in an egg wash, then gluten free breadcrumbs. I would then freeze the raviolis for about 30 minutes to get everything nice and firm (so they don’t fall apart easily) and then try frying then. I’m not too sure how well it would work, but I think that might be your best best with this particular recipe.
Janette says
Hi I made this tonight but I changed the filling in that I added mushrooms 8 oz and onion (1small) to the spinach, ricotta and basil. It was delicious. Will definitely make it again. I was surprised as I made 27 ravioli from this recipe. I’m going to attempt to freeze one of the casseroles. Here’s hoping it freezes well.
Sarah Nevins says
Thanks Janette! So glad to hear you enjoyed it! One thing though – I wouldn’t be surprised if this gets a bit too soggy after freezing. Zucchini holds on to a lot of water which makes to difficult to freeze/defrost. Fingers crossed!
Fiona McCauley says
I have made this recipe a few times and have switched up the flavours for the filling . I love these but am sometimes at a loss as to what to serve with as my partner who does like the veg option occasionally would not go for zuccini spaghetti prefering fried (pre boiled and sliced) new potatoes he said something with a crunch is needed or it gets rather glupey I thought maybe a crunchy salad and some sour dough bread, plese help xx
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Fiona! Glad to hear you enjoy this! I think both of those options you stated would be a good side to a dish like this! I like this idea of a nice crunchy salad for some added texture. I think this quinoa salad would go well with the flavours – it’s got sun dried tomatoes & pine nuts for a little more bite. If you want to keep it simple though I think a nice leafy green salad with an Italian dressing with some sliced almonds would be lovely.
Hope that helps!