This broccoli ricotta cannelloni recipe is utterly delicious. Full of flavor and very filling with coconut flour crepes used in place of pasta tubes.
We had this for lunch one day and it was so filling I am surprised that the Chief Taster managed to go back to work without a “power nap”. It kept me going all day and I could not manage an evening meal. The lemon in the crepe filling gives an added level of flavour. Lemon and broccoli go well together so there is not big surprise there.
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I am having fun with my coconut flour crepes recipe and looking at various ways to fill them apart from the obvious cook them, sprinkle them with lemon juice and sweetener. As they are so flexible due to the coconut flour I thought that they would make a great pasta substitute. I’ve used them for a lasagna cake, so stuffed them like some cannelloni.
We used to eat spinach stuffed cannelloni with a tomato sauce in our pre low carb days but I wanted a slight twist on this. It helped that my fridge was full of broccoli and had a lack of spinach. So, I blitzed up a bowl of broccoli rice, added ricotta cheese with a dash of lemon and voila! A tasty stuffed cannelloni was made.
Although we enjoyed this broccoli cannelloni dish on top of a tomato sauce you could eliminate this to cut down on the carbs, and perhaps use a cheese sauce instead. Or bake the stuffed crepes with the Mozzarella cheese on top. We enjoyed the sauce but it is not a necessity, however delicious it was.
More Keto Pasta Recipes
If you miss pasta there are plenty of low carb replacement options. Try these easy recipes.
Broccoli Cannelloni
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Ingredients
Crepes
- 3 tablespoons coconut flour
- 5 large eggs
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil
- ½ cup water
- 1 tablespoon butter
Sauce
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
- 1 small onion, peeled and chopped
- 1 cup tinned tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons fresh basil
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
Filling
- 10 oz broccoli florets
- ¼ cup Parmesan cheese, grated
- 10 oz Ricotta cheese
- 1 lemon, juice and rind
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
Topping
- ½ cup Mozzarella cheese, grated
Instructions
Make the Crepes
- In a bowl, mix all the ingredients except the butter together. Either whisk or use a hand blender until the mixture is smooth.
- Heat the butter in a medium sized frying pan on a medium heat.
- Gently pour a small amount of the batter into the pan until you have a circle. You can rotate the pan whilst you pour to get a larger crepe. I just pour about one sixth into the pan and just watch it form into a circle naturally.
- Cook on one side for about 1-2 minutes until bubbles appear in the crepe, then flip over to cook for a further 1-2 minutes.
- Repeat with the remaining batter.
Make the Sauce
- Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan on a medium heat and add the onion. Saute for 5 minutes until soft.
- Add the garlic and cook for a further 3 minutes.
- Add the tinned tomatoes, breaking them up with a spoon and add the basil. Season with salt and pepper.
- Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for at least 20 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and using a hand blender blitz until smooth. Or place the sauce into a blender.
Make the Filling
- Rice the broccoli by placing the florets into a food processor and blitzing until it looks like green breadcrumbs.
- Heat one tablespoon of oil in a frying pan and add the broccoli, lemon rind and juice and cook for 3-5 minutes until the broccoli is soft and cooked. Not too mushy though.
- Remove from the heat and stir in the ricotta, Parmesan cheese, salt and black pepper until combined.
Assembly
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F degrees and lightly butter a baking dish. We used an 9 inch square dish.
- Spoon half of the tomato sauce over the bottom of the baking dish.
- Place a couple of tablespoons of the broccoli and ricotta mixture into a crepe and roll into a “cigar”.
- Place the filled crepe on top of the sauced lined baking dish.
- Repeat until the baking dish is full of stuffed crepes.
- Spoon the remaining sauce over the crepes.
- Sprinkle the Mozzarella cheese over the sauce (Parmesan would work too)
- Bake for 15 minutes.
- Eat and enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator.
