Wondering what to do with ravioli? This guide covers how to pick it, cook it, store it, and swap it, plus 15 recipes to put it to work.

What is ravioli?

Ravioli are stuffed pasta pillows: two thin sheets of egg dough sealed around a filling, then cut into squares or rounds. The filling is the point. Everything about cooking ravioli is about getting that tender pocket hot without letting it split open.

You will find them three ways. Fresh ravioli sit in the refrigerated case and cook in two or three minutes. Frozen ravioli keep for months and go straight from the freezer into the pot. Dried, shelf-stable ravioli take the longest at around ten minutes and have a firmer chew.

Fillings split broadly into cheese and meat. Cheese ravioli lean on ricotta with a little parmesan and egg, mild and creamy. Meat ravioli carry seasoned beef or pork and stand up to bolder sauces. Beyond those, squash, pumpkin, mushroom, and spinach fillings are common.

How to Cook Ravioli

Boil them gently, never at a hard rolling boil. Bring a big pot of well-salted water up to temperature, then drop it back to a bare simmer before the ravioli go in.

Why the gentle heat? A violent boil knocks the pillows against each other and tears the seams, spilling the filling into the water.

They tell you when they are done by floating. Most fresh ravioli rise to the surface in 2 to 4 minutes, then need another minute up top to finish.

Frozen run 5 to 7 minutes, dried closer to 10. Bite one to confirm the seam edges, where the dough doubles, are tender.

Lift them out with a spider or slotted spoon rather than dumping the pot into a colander. Draining that way drops the soft pockets onto each other from a height and breaks them. Pumpkin Ravioli Soup skips the transfer entirely by simmering the ravioli right in the broth.

Saucing and Pairing

Match the sauce to the filling, and keep it light. Ravioli already deliver richness from the inside, so a heavy cream sauce piled on top quickly becomes too much.

Delicate cheese ravioli do well under a brown butter and sage or a thin tomato sauce, as in Ravioli with Broccoli Sauce.

Browned butter is the classic partner for squash and pumpkin fillings, its nutty depth playing off the sweetness. Turkey Scallopini & Squash Ravioli with Cranberry Brown Butter builds a whole plate around that idea.

Pesto is a natural too. Broccoli Pesto Cheese Ravioli and Pesto Ravioli with Chicken both coat the pockets in basil oil without drowning them.

For a crisp change of pace, fried ravioli turn boiled or thawed pillows into an appetizer. Bread them, fry until golden, then serve with marinara for dipping. Quick & Easy Fried Ravioli walks through it.

The common mistake is sauce that fights the filling. A heavy meat ragù overpowers a gentle ricotta pocket, while a whisper-thin broth gets lost against seasoned meat ravioli. Read the filling first.

Substitutes

Tortellini and tortelloni are the closest swaps, ring-shaped stuffed pasta that cook and sauce the same way. Agnolotti and mezzelune are folded cousins you can use one for one.

Cheese ravioli stand in for almost any filled pasta in a pinch, including in baked dishes like Ravioli Casserole with Mushrooms & Wine or Speedy Ravioli Bake.

If you have none on hand, a sheet pasta layered with the same filling becomes a quick lasagna or a free-form open ravioli. The flavor lands; only the shape changes.

Buying and Storing

Fresh ravioli live in the refrigerated pasta case with a short date. Buy them close to when you will cook them and check the sheets through the window for tears or a gummy, wet look that signals they have started to break down.

Keep fresh ravioli cold and use them within their printed date, usually a few days. Do not let an opened tray sit out. The damp dough sticks and the filling sours faster than dry pasta would.

Frozen ravioli are the convenience pick and store for two to three months. Do not thaw them first. Drop them in frozen, since thawing makes the dough slack and prone to splitting.

To freeze fresh ravioli yourself, lay them in a single layer on a floured tray until solid, then bag them. Freezing them loose first keeps them from fusing into one clump.

Quick facts

In Chinese

馄饨

British (UK) term

Ravioli

en français

ravioli

en español

ravioles

Recipes using ravioli

There are 15 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 15 recipes