Delicious Homemade Four Cheese Ravioli
An easy and delicious cheese ravioli to serve with any pasta sauce you like. Making ravioli at home is such a fun activity, get your friends and family involved!
Servings: 4 people
Equipment
- Pasta roller
- Baking tray lined with parchment paper
- Pastry or pizza cutter (or a sharp knife)
- Piping bag (optional)
Ingredients
- 1 batch of homemade pasta dough
- 250 grams ricotta see notes
- 100 grams fresh mozzarella or burrata
- 70 grams smoked gruyere grated
- 40 grams parmesan grated
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
Optional filling additions
- 1 - 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (plus the zest if you wish)
- 1 tablespoon fresh herbs (finely chopped, I like rosemary or thyme)
Instructions
For the filling:
- Combine all the cheeses in a food processor and blend until smooth and well combined. Taste to see if you need some salt, it depends a lot on what cheeses you are using.
- Put into a piping bag or covered in a bowl and refrigerate for at least an hour. It makes it a lot easier to work with if it has the chance to solidify in the fridge slightly. Make it the day before if you wish.
For the pasta:
- Use my homemade pasta dough recipe linked above, it's perfect.
- Roll out your pasta as per the rolling instructions in my dough recipe. For ravioli I go to setting 6 on my Marcato roller or setting 7 on my Kitchen Aid. You don't really want to go thinner than that.
- I only work with about ⅙th of the dough at a time. Check out all the photos above for the shaping.
- Fold the sheet in half lengthwise to create a line in the middle.
- Pipe or spoon generous tablespoons of filling right up against the centre line about an inch and a half apart.
- Fold the sheet over and try and keep it lifted up with your left hand while your right goes around the filling mounds pressing all the air out.
- If the folded edge of the dough is facing me I start at the bottom right of the circle of filling and make my way around the circle, pressing the air out as I go. Don't stress if you end up with a few air bubbles, there are worse things in life!
- Press really firmly so the two layers are stuck together really well. This is key so the pasta doesn't end up too thick. Don't worry if there are pleats.
- An optional step is using a wooden dowel or pencil to gently roll in between the filling. This helps to create neater squares of filling as you can press right up along side the mounds to move them into a square shape. It also helps to thin out the pasta layers a touch. Fingers are fine if you think the dowel or pencil is too fiddly.
- Cut along the long side and then down between each one. Depending how far apart the filling blobs are you might need to trim a bit off each side. There are no rules they can be whatever size you like!
- Place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper and dusted with coarse semolina. Loosely cover with plastic wrap.
- See notes below about storing.
- Boil in well salted water for 4 - 5 minutes and add to your favorite sauce.
Notes
Cheese - This is the ratio I used but feel free to experiment or use what you have on hand. The 250 grams of ricotta is key to give it good stability but apart from that there aren't many rules for the remaining 210 grams. Provolone, cheddar, gouda, pecorino are all great other options. Use only two or three cheeses if you would prefer.
Additions - I have added lemon juice, zest and herbs as options to add. Lemon cuts through the richness of the cheese.
Shaping the ravioli - Make sure you check out the photos above in post or head over to my Homemade Ravioli post for a more in-depth guide. You can use this filling for any filled pasta shape you like!
Storing - I love making ravioli ahead so use my guide for storing ravioli. It's a great method of blanching and drying before freezing.
Sauce options - I used a jarred marinara style sauce (I was feeling a bit lazy OK?!). You could use any tomato sauce. My Roast Tomato Sauce is delicious as is my Easy Arrabbiata Sauce. My Brown Butter Pasta Sauce is a classic.