Ravioli Skillet Lasagna
Credit: Anyone Can Cook (Better Homes and Gardens), p. 307
Ingredients:
- 2 cups red pasta sauce
- 1/3 cup water
- 1 9-ounce package refrigerated or frozen ravioli (your choice of filling)
- 1 egg
- 15 ounces ricotta cheese
- 1/4 cup (and a little extra) grated Romano or Parmesan cheese
- 1 10-ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well-drained
Directions:
If you haven’t thawed and drained the spinach, do that first. Also grate the parmesan cheese if you bought it by the block instead of pre-grated. This recipe cooks really quickly, so you’ll want all the ingredients prepped before you start.
- In a 10-inch skillet combine pasta sauce and the water. Bring to boiling; stir in ravioli. Reduce heat.
- Cook, covered, over medium heat about 5 minutes or until ravioli are nearly tender, stirring once to prevent sticking.
- While that’s cooking, in a medium bowl lightly beat the egg, then stir in ricotta cheese and the 1/4 cup of grated cheese.
- Distribute the ravioli and red sauce across the skillet evenly. Top the ravioli with spinach. Spoon ricotta mixture on top of spinach.
- Cook, covered, over low heat about 10 minutes or until ricotta layer is set and ravioli are tender.
- Serve, sprinkling each serving with additional grated cheese on top.
I got this cookbook as a gift from my mom when I first moved out of the UofL dorms and into an apartment. I don’t enjoy cooking, but since I’m an adult who likes saving money I figure I should get used to the idea. After looking at all the easiest recipes in the book, this was the first one I thought I could handle all on my own and that Amber was equally interested in tasting. The first time I made this it was met with rave reviews.
Best thing about this recipe is there are so few dishes to clean afterwards and barely any prep time. You can use all pre-packaged ingredients! But if you buy high-quality stuff they’re all still really tasty. Newman’s Own red sauce is way better than any red sauce I could try to make from scratch. Simple Truth ricotta is damn creamy. And I’m pretty sure every italian restaurant I’ve ever gone to used frozen ravioli too.
Worst thing about this recipe is the name. No one will confuse this with lasagna. Everyone to whom you serve this will say, “this ravioli is delicious!” Feel free to call it just ‘ravioli,’ and then you’ll be seen as a vanguard chef, unafraid of boldly adding layered ricotta mixtures and spinach to your regular stand-by of pasta with red sauce.
I made this for the second time on Saturday and subbed out fresh kale for the frozen spinach, mostly because we had a coupon. It was still a non-life-crushing amount of prep and dishes, but I plan to go back to frozen. The time it takes to chop and wilt the leaves is about the time to cook the entire dish, and I didn’t taste a difference.
Alex Gustafson 