I absolutely love this dish because everyone in my family (myself included) thinks it is delicious! I know I am not alone on my constant mission to find healthy, well-balanced dinners that all four of us can enjoy together (I am not a fan of making separate meals). And the best part about this dish is that once you do the hard part, which is detailed below, you can freeze the uncooked raviolis. Think of those nights when you have no plan for dinner or better yet when you are going out and need something quick for the babysitter to feed the kids. What do a lot of moms do? Throw some frozen chicken nuggets in the microwave for a few minutes. Now if you had some raviolis in your freezer, you could put forth almost the exact same effort by throwing a few in some boiling water for only 4 minutes (sans the sauce). Yes, that is all it takes for fresh pasta to cook…even when they start out frozen!
So, I highly recommend spending one Sunday afternoon making a big batch of these tasty treats. It will take some time and oh it will make a mess, but I promise it is definitely worth it. Plus, if you have kids I am sure they would LOVE to help you roll out the dough. You don’t even have to tell them that the yummy, sweet butternut squash inside the ravioli is actually a vegetable!
Butternut Squash Ravioli
This dish is comprised of three recipes.
Pasta Dough
- 6 eggs
- 3 cups whole-wheat flour (I use King Arthur’s Organic White Whole-Wheat Flour)
- Blend the eggs and flour together in a food processor (with dough blade), kitchen aid mixer (with dough hook), or by hand with a fork.
- If using a processor or mixer the dough will be one large ball chasing itself around the bowl when it is done.
- If the ball of dough is even slightly sticky when you take it out then pat it with flour. Wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest for at least 20 – 30 minutes on the counter.
- Either roll it out by hand or use a pasta machine to thin out the dough and make sheets of pasta (follow manufacturers instructions).
Some Pasta Making Tips:
- When you are working with your dough it should not be sticky at all so pat it with flour as needed.
- My pasta machine has 6 settings – setting 1 makes the dough the thickest and 6 makes it the thinnest. I start on 1, fold the dough over a few times and keep running it through on setting 1 until it is a nice flat piece. Then you progress through 2, 3, 4, etc. to the desired thickness. I find that when making ravioli it is best to stop at 4 otherwise it will get too thin and break apart easily once the moisture of the filling touches it.
Filling
- 2 ½ lbs butternut squash
- 1 tablespoon melted butter
- 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
- Zest of 1 large orange
- ½ cup mascarpone cheese (if you can’t find mascarpone use cream cheese as an alternative)
- 1/3 cup parmesan cheese
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Pinch of nutmeg
- Salt and freshly found pepper, to taste
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Slice the squash lengthwise and remove the seeds. Put the cut side down on a greased baking sheet (or sheet covered with parchment paper).
- Roast the squash in the oven until tender when pierced with a fork. For smaller squash it could take 30 – 40 minutes. For larger squash it could take up to an hour. (This is a good time to mix your dough so it has time to rest – see details above)
- When squash is done scoop the pulp out into a large mixing bowl and discard the skin. Add all ingredients from the butter down to the salt and pepper and stir together thoroughly.
- This filling can be made a day in advance or used to make raviolis immediately.
- When you are ready to make the raviolis, follow the instructions above for making your dough. Lay the finished dough out in sheets and by the spoonful add the ravioli filling. You can brush the dough in-between the filling with either warm water or some egg wash (egg with a touch of water) to help the two pieces stick together. I use an inexpensive Williams Sonoma ravioli tool to seal it together.
- Freeze (do not refrigerate) leftovers on sheets of wax paper in a Tupperwear container. Raviolis should not be touching and there is never a need to defrost…just throw the frozen ones right in the boiling water for about 4 minutes.
If you are boiling them fresh just after making them then it only takes about 3 minutes.
Sauce
- 5 tablespoons butter
- 2 handfuls of sage leaves, torn
- Cook the butter over med-high heat in a sautee pan.
- Add the sage leaves to the butter.
- Cook until butter begins to turn brown then remove from heat immediately.
- Pour over cooked ravioli.
This looks amazing! I so desperately want to start making meals from scratch. Maybe I will try this as my first attempt!
I can just see myself making a huge mess though! Did it take several tries for you to get the ravioli’s as perfect as they are above?
I have been making pasta for about 10 years so I am not sure if I remember how they turned out the first few times! But with anything ….lots of practice does help. You have to start somewhere though so definitely give it a shot (and don’t let your dough get too sticky while you are doing it). Good luck!
I’ll be trying this recipe. I’ve done ravioli before and have a pasta machine and the ravioli making thing you picture. I’ve been wanting to do a squash recipe.
I’ve been enjoying keeping up with your journey. All you need to add to your “homemade”ness, is grinding your own grain. I’ve been doing that now for years. It truly is the best nutritive choice – fresh ground flours!
Someone mentioned that to me before about grinding my own grain. At some point I am definitely going to have to try it! (In the meantime the place where we buy our bread grinds their grain fresh every morning)
I will definitely try this recipe, I have seen butternut squash at our farmers market already and my kids typically like it. Question for Karey who posted earlier… Can you tell me more about grinding your own grain? Where do you get the grain, tools needed, etc.?? I have been wanting to try.
All this talk about pasta dough has me thinking….
I have been making my grandmother’s pie dough from scratch and freezing it for several years now. It is so much better than store bought. But, we use white flour in ours. Have you tried it and if so, have you or anyone else tried it with whole wheat flour?
I would love to be able to use the King Arthur’s white whole wheat!
I have not tried pie dough with whole-wheat yet, but you should definitely give it a shot! I have also seen whole-wheat “pastry” flour for sale in the bulk bins at Earthfare so if the white whole-wheat flour doesn’t work you might want to try that.
I make pie crust from whole grain flour I’ve ground, and butter … whatever grain I’ve got ground in the freezer in ziplock, including whole wheat, kamut, or spelt.
I just read the other comment. I currently grind grain with a Nutrimill. I’ve owned over the years Magic Mill and Whisper Mill – like this one the best. I get 25 or 50# grain quantity, and store in the garage, some in buckets. Even beans can be ground and added to stuff or add boiling water for an instant soup. Ask around. Some health food stores will order you bags. A white (used to be only red winter wheat for bread) whole wheat from Montana makes the best soft whole wheat bread. I post recipes at http://www.kareyskitchen.blogspot.com
I’ve had a pasta maker since my son was born… ummm… yeah, that was back in 2002!! I wanted to make pasta SO bad… but then baby was born and well… I’m gonna guess you know what happened
Anyway, I’ve been seeing butternut squash at the Farmers Market… sounds like I’m going to be making some pasta!!
Question… once the ravioli are frozen can they touch each other?
Thanks for the recipe
If you are thinking of freezing them while they are separated and then throwing them all in a zip lock back together…I think that should work although I have not tried it yet myself. And once you have a little practice making pasta it will become so much easier. You will be very pleased with the results – it is SOO much better than the dried store-bought stuff!
I can’t wait to try this! My husband and I spent 2.5 weeks in Italy this summer and I have to say the food was amazing and so fresh. Dried pasta doesn’t even compare to fresh pasta. We actually bought a ravioli stamp to bring back with us, with plans to purchase a pasta attachment for our Kitchenaid, so we could make fresh pasta for ourselves at home. We had such delicious ravioli, including some butternut squash ravioli, so I am looking forward to breaking out our ravioli stamp to try out this recipe!
Lucky you spending time in Italy! I couldn’t agree with you more about the difference between fresh and dried pasta. Good luck with your new cooking tools!
I’m making these right now! I have 2 smallish butternut squashes and I have no idea how much they weigh. Do you know how many cups of squash 2 1/2 lbs would yield? I’m going to try to double the recipe with what I have so we’ll see how it turns out!
With two small ones I would do about 1.5 recipes…not quite 2!
Could I still do this if I don’t have a ravioli cutter? I’m dying to try this!!!
Yes, you definitely could! Just cut out round shapes with an upside down glass and then put a little water around the edge to help it seal when you fold over the circle into a half moon shape (with filling on the inside). You could also use a fork to help seal it. Good luck!
[...] Homemade butternut squash ravioli [...]
how many ravioli’s does one batch make? approximately how big are they?thinking about giving this a go.
Oh I posted this recipe so long ago I can’t remember how many we ended up with, but the quantity varies greatly depending on the size of the ravioli. You can make them whatever size you want AND you can freeze the leftovers so if you end up with more than you need just save them for later! I hope that helps!
I have never made my own pasta, but was given a pasta maker for a wedding gift (5 years ago!!). Thought I would attempt this recipe, sounds delicious!
I did this – without a pasta maker OR a pasta cutter! And it worked!!!!!! I did a lot of half-moons like you suggested. As I got more confident, I tried squares – I cut them like you did in the picture with a pizza cutter, then used the fork to seal all the way around. I doubled the recipe and froze 2 giant Ziploc freezer bags full. This wasn’t that hard, and it was well worth the effort. Very rewarding. Thank you!
Do you boil all of the ravioli & then freeze it or can you just freeze the raw ravioli?
You freeze the raw ravioli and then throw the cold frozen raw ones right into boiling water when you are ready to eat.
So, I’ve been dying to try this recipe (I love butternut squash and get so excited about making good food for friends that is actually good for them!) and the only thing that wasn’t great was that it was difficult to get the pasta thin enough with a rolling pin…I felt like it might stretch on the counter and tear. Which leads me to wonder if maybe it would be REALLY AWESOME to own my own pasta machine…any thoughts of specific brands, etc?
I want to mention that you might need to add more flour when rolling out the dough if it feels like it will easily stretch/tear, but a pasta machine is a fabulous investment as well (although your dough will still need to be the right consistency). I’ve had my pasta machine for more than a decade and I love it. It is similar to this one: http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/imperia-pasta-machine/?pkey=e|pasta|42|best|0|1|24||2&cm_src=PRODUCTSEARCH||NoFacet-_-NoFacet-_-Feature_Recipe_Rule-_-
[...] preparation for dinner, We decided to make the Real Food’s Butternut Squash Ravioli. We’ve made pasta once before and the kids really dig it. So we had plenty of help [...]
Is it possible to do this without a pasta machine. I would love to try making my own pastas, but the machine is not in the budget right now, nor anytime soon.
You could, but would have to use a rolling pin and roll it VERY thin. Good luck!
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[...] about) I will update this post and post the modified recipe. You can check out the original recipe from the blog 100 Days of Real Food (this is probably the beginning of a fair amount of links to [...]