Recipe for Cannelloni with Lamb Ragù

What’s better than a homemade traditional dish to say I love you, I care, and I took the time to make this recipe for cannelloni for us? Well, what’s even better is that you can actually use this recipe on a Valentine’s cooking date night with your partner, and make the cannelloni together, especially the filling part.

As for the taste, here’s what to expect from cannelloni recipe: a rich, creamy, thick ragù with a distinct lamb taste tucked inside our artisan pasta shells, made even creamier and more indulgent by the besciamella sauce.

Ingredients (2 large portions, 10 cannelloni)

300 gr minced lamb
up to 750 ml passata
3 garlic cloves
1/2 glass red wine
Belmorso Extra Virgin Olive Oil
parmesan cheese
salt, pepper, and rosemary
250 ml besciamella sauce
10 Artisan Italian Cannelloni Pasta (or more if you don’t fill them to the brim like we did)

Preparation

The first step in this recipe for cannelloni is to peel and cut the garlic into slices. If you prefer, you can mince it instead.

Add it to a pot, drizzle with Belmorso extra virgin olive oil, add the rosemary – fresh or dry, and let it sauté.

Add the lamb mince and let it sauté for 15 minutes, mixing it from time to time, and also trying to break the mince into little pieces so you don’t end up with big clusters.

Add the red wine and leave to evaporate. Maybe, don’t pour it all over your marble countertop like we did :).

Add the passata, season, and mix everything.

Leave to simmer for up to 1hr (see tips for a shorter cooking time).

Grate some parmesan cheese and mix it in the lamb ragù sauce.

Let the lamb sauce rest and cool, so that it thickens some more.

You are over halfway through your recipe for cannelloni.

It’s time to start filling your minced lamb cannelloni.

Start with a layer of lamb sauce at the bottom of the casserole.

Next, you can start filling your cannelloni one by one, and layering them next to each other over the lamb sauce.

A trick to fill them is to fill them while pressing them against the casserole, in a vertical position, and then quickly lay them down so the filling doesn’t come out the sides.

Repeat until you have filled all the cannelloni, starting a second layer of cannelloni when you run out of space.

To finish this recipe for cannelloni, you’ll need to make your besciamella sauce, or use a favourite pre-packaged one.

To make the besciamella follow this recipe:

Take two medium-size pots. In one pour the milk, season with salt and pepper, and add the pinch of nutmeg. Put the pot on the hob to heat up the milk.

In the other pot melt the butter. Once the butter has melted, add all of the flour at once, and mix rigorously so as to form a roux.

Pay attention to your milk, you don’t want it to boil.

Add the milk to the roux little by little while you continue mixing.

Once you have added all of the milk, continue mixing for 5 minutes.

Your bechamel sauce should be now thick but not too thick, and lump-free or almost :).

Add one thick layer of besciamella on top of the cannelloni, no need to pour it along the sides of the dish, or it will get too runny.

Finally, use some of the parmesan cheese you grated earlier, or grate some more and sprinkle it on top of the besciamella layer.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes in a preheated oven.

Take your minced lamb cannelloni out of the oven, let them cool, and serve.

Enjoy with a glass of wine with your partner or a loved one.

Tips

If you think this recipe for cannelloni takes too long, you can leave the lamb sauce to simmer for less than an hour. To do this, you need to use less passata – use 500 ml instead of 750 ml, and don’t add any water to dilute the last bit of sauce in the passata bottle.

You still want to let the minced lamb sauce to cool before filling your cannelloni.

In any case, if you taste these you’ll forget the time it took you to make them, and want to make them again and again. Yes, they are that tasty.