I don’t often post non-sweets, but I’m making an exception today. And besides, this is whole grain, which is kind of what I do, so it’s not totally out of place.
Cassie and Ali are hosting an eight week long Tomato Love Recipe Exchange and have teamed up with the International Justice Mission to help raise awareness of the modern-day slavery problem in Florida’s tomato fields, where over 1,000 people have been freed from slavery in the last 15 years. At first I thought, “Slavery? Really? This has to be an exaggeration.” It turns out it’s not. To learn what you can do, take a look at Recipe for Change.
So here we have the recipe. For the first week of the exchange, appetizers are the theme. You could serve these as appetizers or as a main dish. They’re neat like that. :)
This recipe can either go really quickly, with store bought pasta sheets, roasted tomatoes and pesto, or if you have time, you can make everything homemade. Then it’s not so quick.
Just ignore those big tomatoes up there. They don’t belong in this recipe. And after I took this picture, I put them back in the oven for another 10 minutes. To roast the tomatoes, I just used whole cherry tomatoes, added a few cloves of garlic, a little olive oil, and baked at 400°F / 200°C for 30 minutes in a covered pan until shriveled.
I love my pasta machine. I’ve tried making homemade ravioli before with a rolling pin, but I could never get it thin enough for my liking. If you don’t have a pasta machine, you could use premade pasta dough sheets. Where you can find those in the US, I have no idea. I didn’t even know they existed until recently.
I’ve made these twice. The first time with unroasted cherry tomatoes, and this was just stupid. It was a watery mess! The roasted tomatoes worked out much better and they tasted better too.
As far as I’ve seen, we don’t have low-moisture mozzarella over here. And it’s really annoying. Even after draining it and squeezing out the liquid, everything still comes out watery. So if you have the option, get low-moisture mozzarella for these and cut it into chunks if you have to.
100% Whole Grain Caprese Ravioli
- Prep Time:
- Cook Time:
- Ready in:
- Yield: 24 three inch ravioli
Ingredients
- 200 grams whole spelt or whole wheat flour
- 2 eggs
- 48 basil leaves (mine were pretty small, so you could also use 24 normal ones)
- 24 roasted tomatoes or 48 roasted cherry tomatoes (we don’t have plum tomatoes here)
- 24 mozzarella balls / chunks
- pasta dough from above
- ½ cup pesto
- ½ cup roasted tomatoes
- 2 – 3 tablespoons Parmesan
- salt to taste (I needed quite a bit)
For the pasta dough:
For the ravioli:
For the pesto roasted tomato sauce:
Directions
- Mix eggs and flour together. It might be a little workout. It shouldn’t be sticky at all and you shouldn’t have to add more liquid. If you’re using spelt, you might have to add more spelt. I ran mine through setting 8 of 9 (thinnest) with my pasta maker. This is the only recipe I use for pasta and it’s always come out delicious!
- From the pasta dough above, cut out 48 circles. I used a little ravioli cutter, but you could use anything circular.
- Top half of them with 2 basil leaves or 1 if you have large leaves, then the roasted tomatoes (one each or two roasted cherry tomatoes), and then the mozzarella balls.
- Top this with the other 24 circular cut outs and pinch together with a fork. Make sure they’re pressed well together because you don’t want water to get inside.
- Boil until tender (about 4-5 minutes for me, but I like them overdone).
- Mix everything together, smashing the tomatoes with a fork if you like.
- Mix with the ravioli and serve.
For the pasta dough:
For the ravioli:
For the pesto roasted tomato sauce:
Notes
- Yields 24 three inch ravioli, or enough for 4 people as an appetizer.
Source: Ravioli + Sauce idea from Proud Italian Cook – Caprese ravioli with roasted tomatoes, whose pictures of ravioli drove me wild. It only took a day before I couldn’t resist anymore and had to make these.
Come share in the tomato love at the Tomato Love Recipe Exchange, hosted by Gimme Some Oven & Bake Your Day, and sponsored this week by KitchenAid. Also visit Recipe for Change to learn more about how to support tomato farmers!
23 comments on "100% Whole Grain Caprese Ravioli" — Add one!
Thank you for posting this! I can't wait to try it! It looks absolutely devine. :-)
Rosa
Thanks! I hope you like it. :)
My Italian Smorgasbord – Well I'll definitely use ricotta from now on because all the mozzarella here is so wet, even after draining. And thanks! :)
just wanted to let you know that I found packaged ravioli with mozzarella filling, so I guess you did right with that :) it's just the type of mozzarella that did not work. love your pictures.
My Italian Smörgåsbord – I'm happy that you're back! The taste of the plain noodles does taste healthy, but once you put on sauce, the healthy taste goes away! The texture isn't the same as traditional dough but it's still nice. Or perhaps I'm just used to whole grain dough at this point. Normally my husband doesn't like whole grain pasta, but with this, he was different. He actually really enjoyed it and said the sauce made it all better. I will definitely use ricotta next time because the mozzarella was just too watery. I'm really happy that you like the savory dishes. :) I think very few people do. Thanks for the nice comment!
hi there. I am back from holidays and therefore back "in business" ;)
love the idea of whole-wheat ravioli. how did they taste (besides the watery mozzarella)? did they taste "healthy" or the texture was just good to the palate? I would definitely go for ricotta rather than mozzarella, as in the traditional recipe. but the idea of the roasted tomatoes is something I could buy. a colorful variation on the usual ricotta and spinach filling.
ps: I love sweets but I also love your healtyfied savory dishes. want lots of them!
brandi – Thank you! It was delicious too. I ate it all by myself in a few hours. Whoops…
these look gorgeous!! totally jealous of that ravioli – it looks beautiful :)
Baltic Maid – You should join in too! And thanks. :)
Heidi – Mine came out totally deflated. You should look at the original and see how perky hers are. :) And thanks for the non-sweets encouragement. These posts always seem to bomb!
Amy – I know! I couldn't believe how easy it was the first time I made it.
these look fantastic + i love my pasta machine – it's the greatest invention ever!
Wow! I think you need to start posting more non-sweets. These look amazing!! I tried making ravioli once and it didn't turn out nearly as pretty. Still delicious but a lot of work for something not very nice looking. I need to try again!
I love the idea of using our blogs to raise awareness for such issues. Thank you!!!!
And the Ravioli look amazing!
Cassie – Thank you! And it's a pleasure. :)
london bakes – Thanks and you've got to get one! It makes homemade pasta so quick and easy.
Rafael Moss – Thanks!
Sally – Get some premade pasta noodles and try it out. It'd be super quick that way. :)
Sloane – I hope you can. Let me know how you like it!
This is such a great idea. Can't wait to try it!!
Erin, this is SO creative. I want some of these right now for lunch! Absolutely incredible.. I love caprese anything. :)
Its looking delicious .. nice idea. thanks for sharing…You also use this Best Recipe Cookbook for more recipe ideas .
Perfect flavours and gorgeous pictures! Also makes me really want a pasta machine!
This is wonderful Erin. My mouth is watering…insanely good! Thanks for helping to spread the word! xo
Miryam – It's not too late! Today is the last day of appetizer week but there are six more weeks, each with a different theme. Check out the links in the first paragraph. I hope you can participate too. :)
Katrina – Thanks!
sensualappeal – It's insanely easy. But difficult without a pasta maker. A lot of recipes say to let the dough wait, or let the linguine / spaghetti / whatever you rolled out wait, but I never do that and it's always really quick. Maybe 15 minutes from mixing the dough to having it on the plate. :)
Chung-Ah – Haha. Thanks! And you know, I hated whole grain everything until a few years ago. And even today I made whole wheat biscuits and I thought, "Eww. They taste like whole wheat." :)
Totally loving EVERYTHING here. And I'm totally on board with the whole grain (who wouldn't be?!) situation you got going here!
Wow this is such a great idea! I had no idea it's this easy to make pasta too, how awesome :)
This looks so, so, delicious! Lovely idea!
OMG, this looks awesome. I love pasta and the flavors you choose for this are the best. I want to participate on the recipe exchange, is it to late to do it? I am going to look into it :-)