Personal Mini Ravioli Lasagnas

Made with cheese and asparagus filled ravioli, Bolognese sauce and cheese sauce, these personal mini ravioli lasagnas are delicious and fun to feed a small party. 

If you’ve been reading along here for a while, you know that I love baking muffins. For several years I created and published a Muffin Monday post every single week. Nowadays, we celebrate Muffin Monday on the last day of the month so that’s still a minimum of 12 new muffin recipes each year. 

That said, I don’t often use the muffin pans for much of anything else. Which is a pity. Enter our Sunday FunDay host for today, Amy of Amy's Cooking Adventures with a fun theme which will change that: Main dish in a muffin tin! 

I put my thinking cap on and initially decided to make my mother’s goulash, basically Bolognese sauce with macaroni and perhaps some added cheese that I could bake in the muffin tin. But would that REALLY be making a main course in a muffin tin or just rewarming it? 

I figured I needed something just a little more complicated to rise to Amy’s challenge. And sure, I could have cooked lasagna noodles and made actual little lasagnas with more layers just like a big one but the filled ravioli add extra flavor. 

My muffin pan has nine holes so I used 18 fresh ravioli. Fortunately the bag I bought had 18 good ones and one broken one which I discarded. As I mention below, you’ll have plenty of meat sauce. If your muffin tin has more holes, by all means make a little more cheese sauce and buy more ravioli. It’s all good. 

Personal Mini Ravioli Lasagnas

This recipe starts with my traditional Bolognese recipe which make about 4 1/2 cups or 1130g of sauce. You will have about 1 1/2 cups or 365g leftover but trust me when I say that you won’t regret it. It’s rich, delicious sauce that is great with any type of pasta. It also freezes well. 

Ingredients

For the meat sauce:

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for the pan

1 lb or 450g ground beef or pork (or half and half)

3 cloves garlic

1 medium yellow onion

1 can (14 oz or 400g) crushed tomatoes

1 can (6 oz or 170g) tomato paste

1 teaspoon Italian seasonings

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon baking soda

Fine sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

For the cheese sauce:

3/4 cup or 127g ricotta cheese

4 1/2  oz or 126g mozzarella

1 egg

For topping before baking:

1 oz or 28g Parmesan, freshly grated

1 oz or 28g mozzarella, grated

2 tablespoons panko breadcrumbs

Several pinches Italian seasonings, if desired

18 fresh ravioli, preferably round ones for a better fit, filling of your choice

The ravioli I used: 

Method

In a large Dutch oven over a medium high heat, brown the ground meat in the olive oil, crumbling it into the smallest bits possible with a wooden spoon as you do. 

Meanwhile, mince the garlic and chop the onion. 

When the beef is nicely browned, even crunchy in places, turn the heat down and add in the garlic and onions. Cook until they are soft and translucent. 

Add in the canned tomatoes with any juice and another whole can of water. Stir in the tomato paste. Add the Italian seasoning and tuck the bay leaf into the sauce. 

Bring to the boil, then lower the heat. Simmer the sauce, covered, for about 1 hour. 

Discard the bay leaf. Stir in the baking soda. 

This helps neutralize some of the acid in the tomatoes, making the sauce a bit sweeter. Season to your liking with the salt and pepper. Set the sauce aside to cool.

Meanwhile, make the cheese sauce by mixing together the ricotta, mozzarella and egg. Season with a few generous grinds of black pepper. 

Cut squares of nonstick baking parchment to tuck into your muffin pan and crumple them up. This will make them easier to shape into the pan. 

Trim some of the excess off but leave enough overhang so you can remove the mini lasagnas easily once cooked. 

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C. 

Spoon 2 tablespoons of meat sauce into each lined muffin cup. Top with 1 ravioli.

Spoon 1 tablespoon of meat sauce on top. Add 1 tablespoon of cheese sauce.

Top with the second ravioli. 

Add 2 tablespoons of meat sauce. 

Divide the remaining cheese sauce between the mini lasagnas. 

In a small bowl, mix the topping ingredients together and divide them between the mini lasagnas. Finish with a few pinches of Italian seasonings, if desired. 

Pop the muffin tin in your preheated oven and bake for about 35-40 minutes, turning the pan around halfway through if, like mine, your oven doesn’t heat evenly.

Remove from the oven and put the muffin pan on a wire rack. Leave to cool for about five minutes and then carefully lift each mini lasagna out by its parchment liner. 

Use a small spatula to return any sauce on the parchment to the sides of the lasagna.

 

Serve warm or hot. 

We ate two each as a main course, befitting the theme, but these would also be great as a starter with a small side salad, as pictured.

Enjoy!

As I mentioned above, it's Sunday FunDay and today we are sharing main course recipes that can be make in a muffin tin. Many thanks to Amy from Amy's Cooking Adventures for the challenge. Check out the links below. 

• Bacon Cheeseburger Cups by Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Personal Mini Ravioli Lasagnas by Food Lust People Love
• Pizza Cups by Our Good Life
• Poke Cups by Culinary Cam
• Savory Chicken Muffins For Two by Sneha's Recipe
• Sloppy Joe Cups by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Teriyaki Chicken Cups by Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Tuna Noodle Casserole Cups by Palatable Pastime

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms

These tasty stuffed portabella mushrooms are filled with well-seasoned pork, fresh spinach and tomato, roasted until golden brown. They make a rather hearty appetizer or serve as part of the main course with sides.

I have to start off today with an apology. Somehow most of the process photos for this recipe have gone missing so I have none to show you the steps of wilting the spinach, sautéing the vegetables or assembling the stuffing. 

It’s not complicated though so I hope my directions will suffice. We loved these stuffed mushrooms so much that I still wanted to share them. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. 

Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms

Once I had mixed the stuffing together, I weighed it so I could divide by four and know how big to make the patties. The whole weight was 650g so each mushroom is filled with 162g of stuffing.  For those of you who do ounces, that's 23 1/4 oz and 5.8 oz, respectively. 

Ingredients

2 good handsful or 50g baby leaf spinach

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic

1 shallot

1 small tomato, cored

1 small red chili pepper

4 large Portobello mushrooms

1.1 lb or 500g lean ground pork

several sprigs fresh cilantro, hard stems removed, plus more for garnish

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt and/or Cajun seasonings, to taste

Method

Cook the spinach with a drizzle of water in a covered pan until wilted. Scoop it into a strainer over a bowl and leave to drain.

Trim the stems from the mushrooms and discard any hard bits. Chop the tender parts. 

Mince the garlic, shallot, tomato, chili pepper and cilantro stems. 

Add the olive oil to the pan along with the minced vegetables and mushroom stems. Cook till softened, occasionally stirring and adding in any water that has dripped from the spinach. 

Remove from the heat and transfer to a mixing bowl that will fit the pork as well. Leave to cool. 

Use the back of a spoon to squeeze as much of the spinach water as you can into the pan, then tip the spinach on a cutting board and chop finely with a sharp knife. 

Add the spinach to the bowl with the sautéed vegetables. 

Once everything is cool, add in the pork, seasoning it with about a 1/2 teaspoon of fine sea salt or, if you prefer, Cajun seasonings. Mix well.

If cooking to serve immediately, preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C.

Remove a small teaspoon of the stuffing mixture and cook it in a small frying pan. Taste when cooked through and add more salt or seasonings to the stuffing, if needed. 

Form your stuffing into four large patties (see note just above ingredient list) and place one on top of each mushroom. Press down gently. Drizzle the tops with olive oil. 

N.B. The prepared mushrooms may be covered with cling film and refrigerated for several hours, until you are ready to cook them. They will take a little longer to cook through when chilled. 

Roast the stuffed mushrooms in your preheated oven for 30-35 minutes or until the stuffing is browned and cooked through. 

Garnish with a little more cilantro, if desired.

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay and today, this first day of September, we are celebrating National Mushroom Month by sharing mushroom recipes. Many thanks to our host, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm.  Check out the recipe links below. 

• Sue of PalatablePastime served up Chicken and Mushrooms in Wine Sauce
• Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm made Mushroom Paprikash with Homemade Spaetzle
• Mayuri of Mayuri's Jikoni created Mushroom Spinach Hand Pies
• Amy of Amy's Cooking Adventures shares Sauteed Mushrooms, Onions, & Peppers
• Stacy of Food Lust People Love made Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms
• Renu of Cook with Renu served up an Easy Vegan Mushroom Pulau (Instant Pot Lunchbox Recipe)
• Sneha of Sneha's Recipe shares Red Pepper Mushroom

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

Pin these Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms!

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