Ricotta and Spinach Ravioli, homemade following my mom’s recipe. They are a simple dish that you can easily prepare at home and enjoy just boiled with a bit of butter and sage or dressed with your favorite sauce.

To prepare the ricotta and spinach ravioli I use regular all-purpose flour and not durum wheat flour as usually done for homemade pasta, because it’s filled pasta and I don’t like it to be too hard after cooking.

For the filling, I usually use sheep’s ricotta but you can use any you prefer, and the spinach can be substituted with other boiled greens.

For the dough, you can knead it by hand as you see in my video or use a stand mixer since the flour measurements are precise for achieving a perfect dough, which you can then roll out with the classic pasta machine “nonna papera”.

To make good ravioli, I suggest using a pasta machine because the sheet needs to be thin and uniform, but if you are skilled at rolling the dough with a rolling pin, you can also do it by hand.

If you love simple traditional first courses, I suggest also trying the pancotto, here is the recipe.

Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Economical
Preparation time: 30 Minutes
Portions: 6
Cooking methods: Stovetop
Cuisine: Italian

Dough Ingredients

The dough for preparing ravioli is very simple and requires only two ingredients

3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
4 eggs
to taste salt
3.5 oz spinach, cooked, boiled
17.6 oz ricotta
1 egg
to taste salt
to taste black pepper
to taste nutmeg
0.7 oz grated Parmesan cheese

Tools for Dough

To roll out the ravioli dough, I suggest using the “nonna papera”

1 Pasta Machine Imperia

Ravioli Preparation Steps

Preparing ravioli just requires a little love and patience, but it is not difficult at all

To knead, start by making a well with the flour on the work surface and place the four whole eggs in the center. Add salt and, with the help of a fork, incorporate the eggs into the flour with circular movements as you see in the video. Knead vigorously until you get a compact, non-sticky, and smooth dough. Let the dough rest covered while you prepare the filling.
Boil and blend the spinach, place them in a salad bowl, and add the ricotta, a whole egg, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and Parmesan. Mix everything with the help of a fork until you get a nice homogeneous filling.
Take the ravioli dough and divide it into several parts. Pass each part through the pasta machine at the widest thickness setting; to facilitate this operation, sprinkle each part with a little flour before passing it through the machine.
After obtaining many rather thick strips of dough, take one at a time and thin it out (I set it to level 2, which is not the thinnest but the next one). With the help of a teaspoon, place small mounds of filling on half of the sheet and cover with the remaining half.
As you see in the photo, after covering the filling, press the dough well around each mound with your fingers without squeezing it.
Finally, you can cut your ravioli using a fluted pastry wheel, which will help you cut and seal your ravioli well to prevent the filling from leaking out during cooking.
Boil your ravioli in plenty of salted boiling water; they will be cooked after only 5 minutes and you will see them floating. You can enjoy the ravioli plain with simple oil and Parmesan, with melted butter and sage, or with a simple basil sauce, which is my favorite version.