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!

Prep Time

    •    Prep time: 1 hour
    •    Cook time: 30 minutes
    •    Yield: Serves 4

Ingredients

    •    1 egg
    •    1/4 tsp salt
    •    1 1/4 cups flour
    •    1/4 cup hot water

Method

Spinach and ricotta cheese ravioli filling:

    •    1/4 tsp salt
    •    10 oz spinach
    •    1 tbsp olive oil
    •    3/4 cup ricotta cheese
    •    1/2 cup Parmesan cheese shredded

Tomato cream sauce:

    •    1/4 tsp salt
    •    2 tomatoes
    •    2 garlic cloves
    •    1 tbsp olive oil
    •    1/4 cup white wine
    •    5 sprigs fresh thyme
    •    1/2 cup heavy cream
    •    2 cups grape tomatoes yellow and red

Method

For make ravioli dough from scratch:

1. Mix flour with salt.
   
   
2. Stir water with egg until well mixed.
   
   
3. 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:

1. Heat olive oil on medium heat, add spinach and cook covered, stirring occasionally, until spinach wilted, about 15 minutes.
   
   
2. Cook for 5 or 10 more minutes uncovered until all liquid evaporates.
   
   
3. 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:

1. 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.
   
   
2. Once you rolled sheets of dough, shape individual raviolis. To shape ravioli, I use a very handy device, ravioli mould/tray, which works great!

How to make tomato cream sauce:

1. 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.
   
   
2. 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.
   
   
3. 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.
   
   
4. 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.
   
   
5. 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.

This great family recipe is thanks to Julia's Album Recipes at https://juliasalbum.com/spinach-ravioli-cream-sauce-ricotta-cheese-filling-cherry-tomatoes-recipe/