What time is it? – It’s pasta o’clock! Probably on this website you find suspiciously few pasta recipes despite the fact that I live in pasta-land aka Italy. That’s why here you have new pasta recipe. This time a bit more sophisticated than a simple boiled pasta with some sauce. Today I’m offering you easy vegan cannelloni with roasted bell peppers!
In case you don’t know, cannelloni is pasta in shape of a small tube that is filled with different ingredients. Then it is covered with sauce and cooked in the oven. In the non-vegan version, the most popular stuffing is minced meat or ricotta cheese and spinach. Well, in my vegan recipe I kept the spinach, but I substituted the other ingredients with animal cruelty-free food products. To be more precise, I used bell peppers, onions, garlic, spinach, cashews and some spices. Cashews provide the creaminess, while roasted bell peppers give that mildly smoky flavor.
How to prepare vegan cannelloni with roasted bell peppers
To prepare this dish, first you’ll need to find cannelloni that do not contain eggs. But it shouldn’t be that difficult. Lately it’s quite easy to find all the special types of pasta without eggs also in regular food stores. So, once you have the right pasta, gather also the rest of the ingredients and you’re ready to go! The recipe steps are quite easy: you’ll start by soaking the cashews, then you’ll roast the bell pepper, cook onions, spinach and garlic and blend it all together by adding some spices. Apart from that you’ll need to add some spices and crushed garlic to the tomato sauce to make everything even more flavorful.
When your filling and sauce are ready, the most interesting part starts – the stuffing process! I have always done it by using a pastry bag because it’s super easy and quick in that way. You can also try to do it with a tiny spoon, but I’m sure that it will be much longer and messier. So better use the pastry bag! Fill it with the prepared stuffing and push it into every single cannelloni until your pasta tube is full. It’s easier to fill the biggest part of the tube from one side and then finish the filling from the other side. After that you’ll only need to put the filled cannelloni in a baking try, cover them with tomato sauce and cook in the oven for about 30 minutes.
Choose the level of spiciness of your vegan cannelloni
I’m a person who likes the flavor of garlic, that’s why for these easy vegan cannelloni with roasted bell peppers I used it quite a lot. But you can always reduce the amount. In any case, since both the stuffing and the sauce contain garlic, your kitchen will be filled with delicious garlicky aroma while the cannelloni are in the oven. If it doesn’t bother you – great! But in case it does, just like it did bother Specky, do as he did – go for a walk/run/jump in fresh air! Just make sure that someone stays at home to control that your easy vegan cannelloni with roasted bell peppers don’t burn, ha ha!
Another ingredient that affects the spiciness and that you can adjust according to your taste are the red chili pepper flakes. They’re quite spicy, so if you’re not a big fan of spicy food, just skip them and prepare the sauce without these flakes. Even if your easy vegan cannelloni with roasted bell peppers are not spicy, they’ll still be very delicious! And in case you’re searching for other easy and delicious pasta recipes, here are some that might interest you – vegan pasta with arugula and green peas or pasta with vegan spinach pesto or maybe vegan lemon garlic pasta.
I guess, pasta recipes on this website are not that few after all! So, if you manage to make these vegan cannelloni, you will be able to prepare any other pasta dish in the world! Ha ha, ok, just kidding! It’s actually very easy to make them! So, wake up your inner master chef and prepare these cannelloni filled with roasted bell peppers that are:
-
vegan
- easy to make
- mildly spicy
- filling
- creamy
- flavorful
- deliciously aromatic
- with a mild smoky flavor
- and simply yummy!
Let me know, if you try this recipe! Leave a comment or even more – make Specky happy! Snap a picture of your masterpiece and post it on Instagram or Facebook by tagging @bunnymommycooks. And feel free to let your animal family members join in the picture!
| Prep Time | 40 min |
| Cook Time | 30 min |
| Servings |
cannelloni* (check notes)
|
- 15 cannelloni (make sure that they’re egg-free)
- 450 g of red bell pepper
- 250 g of onions (2 small or 1 big)
- 4 cloves of garlic (~18 – 20 g; half for the filling, half for the sauce)
- 100 g of fresh spinach
- 200 g of cashews
- 350 ml of boiling hot water for soaking the cashews (or more, if necessary)
- 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (half for bell pepper, half for onions)
- 900 ml of tomato sauce
- 1 teaspoon of dried dill (or other spices of your choice)
- pinch of salt and pepper
- pinch of red chili pepper flakes (optional)
- 20 g of nutritional yeast (optional)
Ingredients
|
|
- heat the oven to 180°C/355°F;
- put cashews in a heat resistant bowl and cover them with boiling hot water, then set aside for later;
- clean bell pepper from seeds and cut it in big pieces. Line a baking tray with parchment paper, place the pieces on it with the skin facing down and drizzle some oil over them. Put the baking tray in the oven and roast the bell pepper pieces for 20 – 25 minutes or until small black spots start to appear;
- while the bell pepper is getting ready, cut the onion and half of the garlic cloves in small pieces and cook them in small amount of oil. Cut spinach in small strips and add to the onions and garlic. Cook until spinach have reduced in size and onion pieces are golden;
- drain the cashews and put them in a food processor. Blend until they turn into small chunks. Then add in the food processor also roasted bell pepper pieces and cooked onions, garlic and spinach. Add salt and, if used, nutritional yeast and blend everything a bit more to get a thick mixture where you can still see tiny pieces of the ingredients;
- in a small pot warm up the tomato sauce, add dried dill, salt, pepper, crushed garlic and, if used, red chili pepper flakes. Warm it up close to boiling temperature, then take it off the heat/flame;
- put a few tablespoons of the warm sauce in a baking dish and spread it over in a thin layer;
- transfer the stuffing to a pastry bag and one by one fill up the cannelloni. It’s easier to fill them first from one end and then from the other, instead of trying to fill all the tube just from one end;
- place the filled cannelloni in the baking dish that has a thin layer of the sauce in it. Then cover all the cannelloni with the rest of the sauce. Make sure that every part of each cannelloni is covered with the sauce! Then cover the baking dish with aluminum foil and place it in the preheated oven;
- cook in 180°C/355°F for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes check with a fork if the pasta is soft enough for your taste. If not, cook it for some additional minutes.
* on the average 5 cannelloni are enough for 1 person
