Homemade Tortellini with Tomato Sauce
⏱ 40 min prep · 🍳 20 min · 🍽 4
Tortellini isn't a recipe you squeeze into a weeknight - budget 40 minutes of prep plus resting time for the dough, and the shaping itself takes as long as it takes no matter how practiced you get. Where it does earn its place is a weekend where one person mans the stove for the sauce while someone else fills and pinches the crescents shut, because the job moves twice as fast split two ways.
The filling is ricotta, parmesan, and basil. Raw, shaped tortellini holds up fine in the fridge for a couple of hours before it hits boiling water, so you can treat shaping and sauce-making as two separate jobs on the same day without needing to nail the timing to the minute.
The white wine in the sauce reduces for five minutes and most of the alcohol cooks off, but swap in dealcoholized white wine or a splash of extra tomato stock if everyone at the table is eating the same batch.
Ingredients
- 250.000 g ricotta
- 50.000 g revet parmesan
- 1.000 neve frisk basilikum
- 2.000 ss olivenolje
- salt og pepper
- 200.000 g hvetemel
- 130.000 g egg
- 10.000 g salt
- 5.000 fedd hvitløk
- 2.000 stk sjalottløk
- 2.000 dl hvitvin
- 2.000 boks gode hermetiske tomater
- revet parmesan
Instructions
Lag pastadeig ved å blande hvetemel, egg, salt og olivenolje, kna til en jevn deig og la den hvile kjølig.
Bland ricotta, revet parmesan, hakket fersk basilikum, olivenolje, salt og pepper til ostefyllet, og legg blandingen i en sprøytepose.
Kjevle ut den avkjølte pastadeigen tynt med pastamaskin og stikk ut sirkler.
Legg litt ostefyll i midten av hver sirkel, fukt kanten med vann og brett til halvmåne.
Bring endene av halvmånen mot hverandre og klem dem sammen til tortellini-form, og legg de ferdige tortelliniène på et melet underlag.
Fres finhakket hvitløk, sjalottløk og chiliflak i rikelig olivenolje til det blir mykt og duftende.
Tilsett hvitvin og reduser i ca. 5 minutter, tilsett deretter hermetiske tomater og la sausen småkoke til ønsket konsistens, smak til med salt og pepper.
Kok tortelliniène i godt saltet vann i ca. 4 minutter til de flyter opp og er gjennomkokte.
Bland de kokte tortelliniène med tomatsausen og revet parmesan, anrett i skåler og pynt med fersk basilikum.
This is a recipe for families with a Saturday or Sunday block they actually spend cooking together, not just tidying up after. Pressing out circles with a glass and pinching the edges shut is exactly the kind of task a five-year-old can own start to finish, while an eight-year-old can take charge of making sure the filling doesn't squeeze out when the crescent closes. Fresh tortellini is fragile before it's cooked, so this isn't the project for an afternoon when your hands are already full with something else that needs full attention. The shaping stage does forgive interruptions better than most dinners, though - stop, deal with the doorbell or the toddler, come back an hour later, and pick up right where you left off.
FAQ
Can I freeze homemade tortellini?
Yes. Lay the raw, shaped tortellini with space between them on a floured tray and let them freeze individually for about two hours before bagging them up - that keeps them from clumping together in the freezer. Cook straight from frozen in salted water; count on 5-6 minutes instead of 4, until they float to the top.
Do I have to make the pasta dough from scratch, or is there a shortcut?
Store-bought fresh pasta sheets from the chilled section work fine for filling and shaping, and they save you the 40 minutes of mixing and rolling dough yourself. They're thinner and more even than homemade, so the tortellini seal more easily - though the sheet is a little less elastic to work with when you're folding the crescent tight around the filling.
How do I adapt this for kids?
Cut back on or skip the garlic and any chili flakes in the sauce, and keep the cheese filling to plain ricotta, parmesan, and basil without anything sharp added in. Serve the sauce from two separate pots if part of the family wants it milder. The pinching and filling itself is good fine-motor practice for school-age kids, and most manage a neat crescent after two or three tries.
How long does cooked tortellini with sauce keep in the fridge?
Tortellini already tossed with tomato sauce keeps for 2 days in a sealed container in the fridge. Reheat gently in a pan with a splash of water or cream stirred in, since the pasta dries out quickly in the microwave. Raw, unshaped tortellini actually freezes better than cooked-and-sauced portions - the pasta's texture holds up better after thawing and boiling than after reheating from chilled.
Can I swap out the ricotta in the filling?
Yes - cottage cheese blended smooth, or plain cream cheese, both work as a substitute if ricotta isn't available. The parmesan and basil hold the filling together regardless of which one you use. Just make sure the filling isn't too loose, or the tortellini will be hard to seal properly at the edges.
How do I fit this into the week without it taking over?
Block out an hour for filling and shaping on a day you're home anyway, with the sauce simmering on the stove in the background. Make a double batch of filling and you'll have enough tortellini for dinner that night plus a bag for the freezer, ready for a night later in the week when nobody has the energy to cook from scratch.