Cannelloni with Ground Pork in Tomato Sauce – Easy Baked Recipe
I've loved all kinds of stuffed dishes since I was a kid. I remember how, a long time ago, shops sold large pasta tubes packed in boxes in neat rows, and my mom would often stuff them with ground pork and bake them in tomato. That's how Italians make cannelloni with meat filling – a classic stuffed pasta dish. As simple as it is, it tastes amazing.
This type of pasta is a common one. It looks like large tubes, up to 10 cm long and up to 3 cm across. Dry factory-made pasta is quite firm, so it's easy to stuff and holds its shape. I once read that this naming isn't quite accurate. The tubes are properly called manicotti (“sleeves”), while cannelloni, as Italians call them, are flat sheets of pasta, similar to lasagna, that get rolled into a tube around the filling.
The most common fillings are all sorts of cheeses, greens – mostly spinach – and meat. The baking sauce is béchamel or something similar, though it isn't always used. Cannelloni with meat are usually baked in tomato sauce or, even better, in the pulp of ripe tomatoes. There are also recipes where the stuffed pasta is steamed or cooked in a skillet.
The dough for this pasta contains eggs, so it usually has a yellowish tint. In composition and density it's close to lasagna. If the flour is good quality and made from durum wheat, the pasta barely swells while cooking and keeps its shape. It's important to have enough liquid in the sauce for the pasta to cook through.
Even though the most popular filling is cheese and spinach, I wanted to make a filling of pork fried with onion. Meat goes better with tomato, and the dish turns out very hearty.
The name of the pasta is often used for the dishes made with it, with only the type of filling specified. Making the filling is not much different from the one used for cabbage rolls or stuffed peppers. The meat is fried with onion until fully cooked, since the filling may not have time to cook while the pasta bakes. For the sauce you can use fresh or canned tomato pulp.
Ingredients
2 servings
- Cannelloni 6-8
- Pork 250 g
- Onion 1
- Ripe tomatoes 2
- Olive oil 1 tbsp
- Salt, black pepper, dried herbs (oregano, basil, savory) to taste
Step-by-step recipe
- It's better to use fattier meat for the filling. After baking it will be softer and juicier. Pork neck or a piece of shoulder with fat along the edge works well. You can add finely chopped ham, grated cheese, or white bread to the filling to make it firmer, plus a clove of garlic. Buy pasta tubes that don't need to be boiled beforehand.
- Peel the onion and cut it into small cubes or thin strips. Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a sauté pan. Fry the onion over low heat until it softens and starts to turn lightly golden. Don't overcook the onion, or the dish may end up with a noticeable burnt taste.
- Grind the pork in a meat grinder. Add the meat to the fried onion. Stirring, fry the onion and meat until the pork turns pale. Season the meat lightly with salt and pepper. Add 1 tsp of an aromatic herb blend used in Italian cooking. These blends are sold ready-made and contain savory, oregano, dried basil, parsley, and so on. Stir, add 2–3 tbsp of water, and simmer the filling covered over low heat for 15 mins. Let the meat cool a little so you don't burn your fingers.
- While the filling cooks, make the tomato sauce. The easiest way is to peel ripe tomatoes, remove the seeds, and blend the pulp. You can also use canned tomato pulp. Salt the tomato and add a pinch of aromatic herbs. Simmer the tomato until it's roughly the consistency of kefir.
- Stuff the cannelloni tightly with the filling. Try not to let the filling fall out. You'll need a baking dish – glass or ceramic. It should be big enough to fit all the stuffed cannelloni in a single layer.
- Pour some of the prepared tomato sauce into the dish so it completely covers the bottom. Lay all the stuffed pasta in a single layer, ideally with small gaps between the tubes. Pour all the remaining sauce over the stuffed pasta. If it turns out there isn't enough sauce, you'll have to add a little water, though it's better not to. It's worse if parts of the pasta end up undercooked.
- Preheat the oven to 180 °C and put in the dish with the pasta and sauce. It will take a while for the sauce to heat up. Once it starts to boil, the stuffed cannelloni will be ready in 15 mins.
- Take the dish out of the oven. Use a spatula to transfer the pork-stuffed pasta to plates and pour plenty of sauce over it. If you like, add some more pepper to the cannelloni. Serve right away, while the pasta is still hot.
| Yield: | 2 servings |
| Calories: | 130 |
| Prep: | 30 mins |
| Cook: | 30 mins |
| Total time: | 1 h |
| Category: | Main Dishes |
| Cuisine: | Italian cuisine |
| Rating: |
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4.9
(10)
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