Baked creamy, cheesy Cannelloni with spinach.
A perfect splendid family dinner meal!
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What are Cannelloni?
Cannelloni are a tube shaped Italian pasta variety.
They can be stuffed and baked similiar to other pasta shells.
Manicotti are much like cannelloni and can be used as a substitute instead of cannelloni.
You can fill your pasta tubes with almost anything delicious, but today's recipe is a cheesy spinach Florentine meal for your family.
How to make baked stuffed cannelloni?
Stuffing your pasta tubes can be a bit tricky but I show you how it's done easily in this quick over view.
The complete recipe with US and metric measurements is located at the bottom of this post. The video is the pop up.
Step 1
Combine the ingredients for the cream cheese spinach stuffing.
Step 2
Place cannelloni pasta into casserole dish and stuff with the cream cheese mixture..
Arrange stuffed cannelloni next to each other in the casserole dish.
Step 3
Combine tomato sauce ingredients and seasoning in a mixing bowl.
Pour tomato sauce over the stuffed cannelloni and top with grated cheese and olive oil.
Bake until cooked through.
Serving
We love our creamy spinach stuffed cannelloni pasta tubes with a green salad.
A lighter salad is a great choice because the dish is rather heavy and you want to balance this out.
Choose a dressing that isn't too creamy because you already have creamy textures in your baked pasta dish.
Storing
You can store leftover in air tight containers in your fridge for up to 5 days.
You can also freeze your stuffed cannelloni if you want to make it in advance!
To do that you just need to prepare the dish as per instructions in your casserole baking dish.
Next, place the cannelloni into your freezer. Freeze hard and store for up to 2 months.
To thaw, in your fridge overnight. OR place frozen into your oven and bake extra time until it's golden and top and cooked through on the inside.
FAQs
Buy cannelloni that you don't need to pre boil. I use Barilla cannelloni because I can just stuff them quickly when they are uncooked and they just cook through when baked as a whole. If you use cannelloni that need to be pre cooked, they are difficult to stuff because the pasta is soft.
Use fresh or frozen spinach. For fresh spinach, blanch and chop. For frozen spinach, thaw and chop.
You can use ricotta instead of cream cheese.
More Pasta Bakes
Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas with us in the comment section further below!
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📖 Recipe
Baked Cannelloni with Spinach Recipe
Ingredients
Cream Cheese Stuffed Cannelloni
- 1½ cup Cream Cheese
- 1 cup Spinach blanched chopped compressed
- ½ Teaspoon Salt
- ¼ Teaspoon Black Pepper
- 1 Teaspoon Paprika
- 2 Teaspoon Thyme
- 2 cloves Garlic chopped
- 1 cup Cheese grated, *see Notes
Topping
- 2 cups Tomato Sauce
- ½ Teaspoon Salt
- ¼ Teaspoon Black Pepper
- 1½ Tablespoon Italian Seasoning or Oregano
- Cheese grated, *see Notes
- 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350° Fahrenheit/ 180° Celsius.
Cream Cheese Stuffed Cannelloni
- Prepare the cream cheese spinach stuffing first. Combine the cream cheese, spinach, salt, black pepper, paprika, thyme, garlic and grated cheese.
- Place canneloni pasta tubes into your casserole baking dish.
- Stuff your pasta tubes with the cream cheese spinach mixture. Use a fork to fill them up and use up all the cream cheese mixture.
- Place stuffed pasta tubes next to each other in your casserole dish.
Topping
- In a mixing bowl combine the tomato sauce, salt, black pepper, Italian Seasoning (or oregano).
- Pour tomato sauce over stuffed pasta tubes adn spread it out.
- Sprinkle grated cheese over the tomato sauce and spread the olive oil over the cheese.
Bake
- Bake the stuffed cannelloni for about 20-25 minutes or until cooked through and done at 350° Fahrenheit/ 180° Celsius.
- Serve up hot.
Notes
- Grated Cheese - can be cheddar, mozzarella, pizza cheese, gruyere, Emmenthal. A good melting cheese that you enjoy. 🙂
- For the Cheese topping, use as much as you like. I used about ½ cup or 50 grams.
- You can use frozen or fresh spinach. For frozen spinach, thaw, press out to discard extra waters, and chop small. For fresh spinach, blanch (cook 2-3 minutes in boiling water), strain, compress, and chop up.
Equipment
- Fork
- Spoon
- 13" Rectangular Baking Dish
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