This is a wonderfully quick-prep recipe that comes together with budget-friendly chicken mince, ricotta and hassle-free fresh lasagne sheets. Served with a salad and garlic bread, that’s dinner done!
How to make chicken and ricotta cannelloni: key tips
Cooking the onion, garlic and chicken mince in the frying pan first brings out the flavours and causes some caramelisation, which adds to the satiety of the filling. Allowing the mixture to cool before adding the remaining ingredients lets it firm up a little, while also preventing the ricotta from heating up and becoming soft and runny, which would make assembling tricky.
When assembling your filling on the cut lasagne sheets, try not to overfill each pasta sheet, as you’ll need to roll it up with the edges overlapping a little, so that you are able to lift it up and place it in your baking dish without everything falling to pieces. Remember to place your ‘tube’ seam-side down in the dish so that it stays intact.
The cannelloni tubes are placed on top of the sauce, so that the pasta doesn’t stick to the base of the baking dish.
Key ingredients in this chicken picnic pie recipe
Chicken mince is cheap and fuss-free. There’s no chopping, you just brown it with the onion and garlic, and then mix in the remaining ingredients.
Using fresh lasagne sheets is a really easy way to make cannelloni, as there is no need to push or pipe the filling into a dried pasta tube (I always find they are easy to break, too!).
You’ll need the whole 700g jar of pasta sauce for this recipe, as the sauce will soak in and cook the pasta, and will also be generally spooned over the cannelloni when serving.
Need more picnic supplies? Check out these delicious pies for a picnic, as well as these romantic picnic recipe ideas.
This recipe was originally submitted by Melissa, a member of the Australia’s Best Recipe community. Introduction and additional recipe notes by Natasha Shaw.
Ingredients
- 1 tbs olive oil
- 1 onion finely chopped
- 2 tsp garlic crushed
- 400g chicken mince
- 250g ricotta
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 4 fresh lasagne sheets
- 700g pasta sauce
- 1 cup cheese grated
- 1 pinch salt and pepper to taste
Method
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Step 1Preheat oven to 180C.
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Step 2Heat oil in a frying pan and cook onion and garlic until soft.
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Step 3Add chicken mince and cook until it has whitened.
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Step 4Remove the mince from the pan and allow to cool.
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Step 5When cooled add ricotta, nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well.
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Step 6Cut each lasagne sheet in half and place chicken down the middle of each sheet.
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Step 7Roll up and place join on the bottom.
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Step 8Spread half the tomato sauce in the bottom of a large baking dish.
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Step 9Arrange rolled cannelloni over sauce.
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Step 10Pour remaining tomato sauce over the cannelloni and sprinkle with cheese.
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Step 11Bake for 35 minutes.
Recipe Notes
What else could I add to this chicken and ricotta cannelloni?
Feel free to add whatever you like to this cannelloni. I like baby spinach leaves and chopped bacon and button mushrooms for an extra flavour and veg hit. Corn kernels would also be nice, and you could also swap the ricotta for cottage cheese or 100g feta. The world is your oyster!
Can I make this chicken and ricotta cannelloni ahead of time?
You can certainly make the filling up to 2 days ahead of time and store it in an airtight container in the fridge. I would then assemble the cannelloni and cook it on the day of serving, for the best results.
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