Vegan Pumpkin Ravioli
Homemade vegan ravioli, stuffed inside with pumpkin and kale, with a white cream alfredo sauce and roasted walnuts. Make this perfect date night meal, or throw it together to impress some guests. Delicious, affordable, and so much better than store-bought.
To skip to any part of the recipe, click on any one of the links below:
Introduction
Another dish is added to the Romantic Plate Club: the Homemade Vegan Pumpkin Ravioli. A dish that shows off your grace, finesse, and taste - frankly, because it tastes so good. But sometimes the best part about cooking for your date is cooking with your date (cue Hannibal Lecter joke). Grab your partner, whether its your first date or your hundredth, and make some ravioli together.
The great part about ravioli is that it’s not super difficult to make. You throw some ingredients together into a big pile, form them into a dough, roll ‘em out, put your favourite stuff inside, pop them into some water, and you’re set. And while this incredibly summarized summary is somewhat light on descriptive quality, it really is that easy when you break it down.
The sauce is just as delicious as the pasta. Creamy, light, and so, so easy to throw together. Make it in no time so that you can move from making ravioli to making your way to the couch with two plates of ravioli in hand, and a movie ready on screen.
The secret to this dish is to take your time when stuffing and forming your ravioli. Roll your pasta out super thin, and cut it into evenly sized squares (even better if you have a circular object you can cut out disks with). Fill your pasta up slightly in the middle, drape over with another piece of pasta, and ensure that all of the air between the two sheets of pasta is pushed out, otherwise, they can pop.
Check out the Spruce it Up section for ideas on how to take this recipe to the next level.
Before we Get Started
Prep Time: 1 hr. 15 mins
Note: 30 Minutes of this is resting time for the dough
Cook Time: 20 Minutes
Total Time: 1 hr. 35 mins
Yield: 30 Ravioli
Ingredients
4 tbsp. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Don’t sweat it if you don’t have EVOO. Just use whatever oil you have on hand.
1 1/2 cups Warm Water
6 cups All Purpose Flour
2 cups Pumpkin Puree
I used the canned stuff.
2 leaves of Kale
5 Garlic cloves
1 White/Yellow Onion
Approx. 1.5 cups
1 cup Vegetable Broth
1/3 cup Dairy-Free Milk
I used unsweetened Almond Milk
2/3 cups Raw Cashews
1.5 tbsp. Lemon Juice
1/2 tsp. Black Pepper
Handful of Chopped Walnuts
Method
On a clean surface top, make a small, shallow pile with your flour. Make a wide hole in the middle, so that your pile is open in the middle but has high edges.
Kind of like a crater.
Mix your oil and warm water together, and pour a small amount into your flour crater. Push some of the flour into the water oil mixture, while maintaining your crater’s structure. Add some more water/oil, and add some more flour. Continue this process until you’ve used all of your water, and you’ve formed a dough.
Once your dough has formed, roll into it a ball shape. Lightly flour your work surface, and knead your pasta dough for about 5 minutes. Toss your dough into a bowl, wrap it with cling film, and put it into the fridge for 30 minutes.
While your dough is in the fridge, finely dice your onion and garlic cloves. Heat up a pan over medium-high heat, with oil. Add your onion and cook for 1-2 minutes, then add 4 cloves of garlic. Cook for another minute, the add your onion and garlic to a blender, with your vegetable broth. Blend together, then add your cashews, lemon juice, dairy-free milk, and black pepper, and blend again.
Add it back to the pan on medium heat, and allow it reduce until you’re happy with the consistency. Give it a taste, and add salt until you love the taste.
When you’re happy with the consistency and taste, turn off the heat.
Add your pumpkin puree into a bowl. Rip the leaves off of a leaf of kale, and give them a good chop. Toss them into the bowl with the pumpkin, and add a good pinch of salt.
Just the leaves, not the stem.
Once your pasta is ready to come out of the fridge, give your work surface another flour. Place your dough out onto the table, and cut it into four equal portions. Roll out one portion very, very thinly.
Aim for paper thin, but don’t sweat it if you don’t get there. Just do your best.
Using a knife or the top of a glass, cut out squares or circles from the pasta dough.
Repeat steps 7 and 8 for the remaining three portions of pasta.
Bring a big pot of water to a boil. Salt heavily.
Place as many of your pasta squares or circles as you can comfortably fit onto your work space. Put some pumpkin mixture into the centre of each pasta disk, then place another disk over top. Squeeze the edges tightly so that all of the air is pushed out.
Put your ravioli sauce back onto the heat. Once you’ve made all of your ravioli, place some into your boiling water, and cook until they float to the top.
Don’t put too many in at once or the water temperature will drop really quickly and they won’t cook. Add some, cook them and remove them, then add some more.
When your pasta has finished cooking, add it to the sauce, and spoon some of the sauce over your ravioli.
Chop up your walnuts.
Put some of your ravioli on a plate and sprinkle over top with walnuts.
Enjoy.
Spruce it Up
For an extra kick, add some chili flakes to your alfredo sauce.
For a more authentic pumpkin sauce, use a real pumpkin. Roast them in the oven, then use a fork or masher to mash it into a puree.
Feel free to mix up the fillings you use. You can try:
Mushrooms and Spinach
Roasted Butternut Squash
Spinach and Vegan Ricotta
So many more