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This easy ravioli sauce is easy to make and tastes fantastic! Use frozen, fresh, or homemade ravioli, and serve them with this awesome creamy tomato sauce. Best of all, it’s ready in 30 minutes, so you can make it on short notice!
This ravioli sauce is packed with flavor and wonderfully easy to make. Because ravioli are often filled with delicious ingredients, particularly if you make them yourself, you can make the most of a simple sauce to serve your ravioli in.
Easy Ravioli Sauce
The cool thing about ravioli is it doesn’t need a complex sauce. Smooth, simple, tasty sauces are very well suited to filled pasta like ravioli or tortellini. In fact, in many parts of Italy, ravioli is typically served with a little butter, oil, and herbs, and that’s all. Here, we’re making a creamy tomato sauce with some Italian cheese melted through.
Recipe Tips
- You can use freshly diced tomatoes if you like. Roma tomatoes are one of the best varieties for pasta. Fresh tomatoes hold a lot of water so they might make your sauce a little thinner, but you can easily reduce it by cooking it for longer or adding a little extra flour to thicken the sauce.
- We highly recommend that you use a cheese or chicken ravioli for this recipe. Rana makes a beautiful four-cheese ravioli (or, in Italian, quattro formaggio) that is great for this sauce. It tastes awesome and you end up with SIX varieties of cheese in your dinner.
- We strongly encourage you to grate your Parmesan cheese from a block. This has two benefits. Firstly, freshly grated cheese melts more quickly than packaged cheese as it has a greater surface area-to-volume ratio. This increases its rate of reaction and causes the cheese to melt more quickly. Secondly, it tastes much better!
- Use a box grater to grate your cheese. A high-quality box grater with a non-slip handle will make grating cheese – and many harder foods, like carrots – an absolute breeze.
How To Make Ravioli Sauce
- First, you’re going to melt butter in a pan. Add your minced garlic and cook it for one minute so it becomes aromatic. Whisk in your flour over the next minute, then throw in your tomato paste, onion powder and Italian seasoning.
- Next, you’re going to add your chicken broth one splash at a time. Stir continuously as you go, and add half and half while stirring. Bring to a gentle simmer. At this stage you ought to be looking at a reasonably thick, aromatic sauce!
- Our next step is to stir in sour cream and tomatoes. Drained diced tomatoes from a can are perfect for this recipe, so that’s what we’re using. The touch of acidity and savor from the tomatoes is really important for this dish.
- Next, cook your pasta according to the package instructions, and drain it.
- Stir your parmesan cheese into the sauce over a low heat once you’ve drained the pasta and then add the spinach and cook until it is wilted.
- Add your ravioli to the sauce! The sauce will lightly permeate the ravioli, lending the pasta some innate flavor. Use a soft spatula such as one made of silicone to stir, and garnish with parsley to serve!
Can You Store Ravioli?
The ravioli themselves store very well, and this sauce does, too.
Your sauce will keep in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to three days. You can freeze your leftovers if you want, but creamy sauces are prone to separation in the freezer and ravioli that has already been cooked will not hold up to the harsh conditions of a freezer.
What To Serve With Ravioli
- A nice fresh salad like Cucumber and Tomato Salad is a classic option that will work as a palate cleanser and help make this a more balanced, healthy meal. A green salad or Mediterranean salad like Fattoush are great option for this.
- A tuscan salad with some fruit and nuts could also be a pleasant offering.
- Get a loaf of nice crusty bread to serve with this dinner, too. You can use a simple ciabatta or Focaccia bread , but we love using a decadent, cheesy garlic bread to mop up any sauce left on the plate. Trust us, this sauce is so tasty that you won’t want to waste a drop.
Love Ravioli? Try these!!
- Lobster Ravioli Sauce
- Creamy Garlic Butter Tortellini Sauce
- Homemade Mushroom Ravioli
- Creamy Mushroom Ravioli Sauce
- Homemade Chicken Ravioli
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Easy Ravioli Sauce
This easy ravioli sauce is easy to make and tastes fantastic! Use frozen, fresh, or homemade ravioli, and serve them with this awesome creamy tomato sauce.
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 3/4 cup chicken stock, or broth
- 1 1/2 cups half & half, or half cream and half milk
- salt, as needed
- 10 ounces Rotel tomatoes with green chilies
- 4 tablespoons sour cream
- 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- 5 ounces (150 grams) baby spinach
- 25 ounces (700 grams) refrigerated ravioli
- 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped
Instructions
- In a large skillet melt butter over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute or until fragrant. Then, whisk in the flour until smooth. Let it bubble for at least 1 minute while mixing.
- Add the tomato paste, Italian seasoning and onion powder and stir to combine.
- Gradually add the chicken broth while whisking. Pour in the half and half slowly and bring to a gentle simmer.
- Add in the sour cream and drained tomatoes and bring to a simmer again.
- Add the parmesan cheese and stir until combined. Season the sauce with salt.
- Finally, add the spinach and cook further for 1-2 minutes or until it is wilted.
- Cook your ravioli in a pot of salted water as per package instructions.
- Add the ravioli to the sauce and stir to combine using a spatula.
- Garnish with parsley.
- Serve immediately and enjoy!
Notes
You can use freshly diced tomatoes if you like. Roma tomatoes are one of the best varieties for pasta. Fresh tomatoes hold a lot of water so they might make your sauce a little thinner, but you can easily reduce it by cooking it for longer or adding a little extra flour to thicken the sauce.
You can add a teaspoon of hot sauce early on to add some heat to your sauce. Unless you’re using an extremely hot sauce, a teaspoon won’t be enough to make the sauce overly spicy.
We highly recommend that you use a cheese or chicken ravioli for this recipe. Rana makes a beautiful four-cheese ravioli (or, in Italian, quattro formaggio) that is great for this sauce. It tastes awesome and you end up with SIX varieties of cheese in your dinner.
We strongly encourage you to grate your Parmesan cheese from a block. This has two benefits. Firstly, freshly grated cheese melts more quickly than packaged cheese as it has a greater surface area-to-volume ratio. This increases its rate of reaction and causes the cheese to melt more quickly. Secondly, it tastes much better!
If you can get it, authentic Italian parmigiano-reggiano is a great way to really take your dinner to the next level. The real deal is only made in a small part of Italy, and has a deep, slightly sweet flavor that you just can’t replicate elsewhere. Try it if you can and taste the difference for yourself!
Use a box grater to grate your cheese. A high-quality box grater with a non-slip handle will make grating cheese – and many harder foods, like carrots – an absolute breeze. The risk of slipping and damaging yourself or your food is lower, and you can get precisely the amount of grated cheese you want simply by hand-grating the Parmesan yourself.
Nutrition
Calories: 505kcal | Carbohydrates: 45g | Protein: 20g | Fat: 27g | Saturated Fat: 12g | Cholesterol: 100mg | Sodium: 901mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 4g
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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This was sooooo yum the whole family loved it and easy to make. Its a go too recipe for us now. Not sure what the 1 ½ cups half and half half cream and half milk is for as i could not see it in the instructions
Hi Jo! I’m so glad your family loved the recipe! To clarify, 1 ½ cups half & half simply means you can use store-bought half & half or make your own by mixing equal parts cream and milk (¾ cup each). Let me know if you have any other questions, and thanks for trying the recipe!