This recipe for vegan manicotti with spinach and bean ricotta has all the deliciousness of hearty comfort food, just like a vegan lasagna, and it's secretly healthy. The spinach "ricotta" stuffing is made partly with white beans and all of it is drowned in tasty marinara sauce and baked with bubbly vegan mozzarella cheese. A soy-free recipe, can be nut-free and gluten-free.
If you're looking to eat healthy over the holidays, or in the New Year, bake up a big casserole of this hearty vegan Manicotti with Spinach and Bean Ricotta.
This is one delicious pasta bake, but it's also incredibly good for you. The stuffing is a "ricotta" made with white beans and cashews with green, leafy spinach added in. After filling the cannelloni or manicotti cylinders (you can use either), you smother it all under my delicious and, again, healthy marinara sauce that I shared with you just this week.
Sprinkle vegan mozzarella on top for a more classic look and taste, or, if you want to keep this free of anything processed, use an herby breadcrumb topping like the one I use for my Pumpkin Spinach Lasagna.
There are seven servings in this manicotti, so you have enough to feed a crowd -- or freeze some away for later. This recipe is a crowd pleaser if there ever was one, and it's guaranteed kid-friendly.
Table of Contents
Tips for making the best vegan manicotti
- This recipe comes together fast, but you can save more time on the day you plan to serve this dish by making the marinara sauce a couple of days ahead. Also, I started out with dry navy beans and cooked them myself, but you can use canned white beans -- any kind is fine.
- You can use either cannelloni tubes (which are smooth) or manicotti tubes (which are ridged) in this recipe. You will need to parboil your noodles first, as you would lasagna noodles (unless they're no-boil). Don't boil your noodles all the way -- let them hang out in the water for just six minutes after it comes to a boil. The noodles will continue to cook in the oven.
- When making the filling for the pasta tubes, blend the cashews first, before adding the cooked or canned beans to the blender or processor, and then continue to process. This will ensure your filling is smooth with no gritty bits of unprocessed cashews.
- I use the cashews to add more creaminess and some richness to the filling. They also keep the filling more moist. But if you want to make this nut-free, leave the cashews out and just use an additional ½ cup of beans.
- You can make this recipe gluten-free with gf manicotti noodles. If you can't find these, you can use gf lasagna noodles. Make lasagna roll-ups with the filling, then place in the baking dish.
Ingredients for the vegan manicotti
- Manicotti or cannelloni tubes
- White beans -- navy, cannellini, great northern, lima are all fine.
- Raw cashews (you can use just more beans if you want to make this nut-free)
- Vegan mozzarella shreds
- Spinach
- Oregano
- Garlic
- Garlic powder
- Onions
- Onion powder
- Nutritional yeast
- Nutmeg
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Vegan marinara sauce
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Vegan Manicotti with Spinach and Bean Ricotta
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups white beans (canned or cooked and drained. I used navy beans. Any other white beans, including cannellini, baby limas or great northern beans are fine)
- ½ cup raw cashews (soaked in water for 30 minutes, then drained)
- 2 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 large onion (finely chopped)
- 2 cloves garlic (minced)
- 12 oz spinach (I used frozen chopped spinach, but fresh works too. Make sure you chop it into small bits before using)
- 8 oz vegan mozzarella shreds (divided)
- 2 tablespoon parsley (minced)
- 8 oz manicotti {or cannelloni). Let the pasta tubes cook in boiling water for about six minutes but don't cook them all the way. They will continue to cook in the oven.
- 1 recipe marinara sauce (approx 3 cups)
- Salt and ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Make the filling by placing the cashews in a blender or food processor with ½ cup water and process to a very smooth paste. Add the beans to the blender along with the nutritional yeast, onion powder, garlic powder, oregano, nutmeg and salt and ground black pepper to taste. Process until you have a smooth filling that should be stiff, not runny, so you can easily stuff the manicotti. Try not to use any more water while processing, but if your blades won't move, add a tablespoon or two.
- Heat oil in a saucepan. Add the onions and garlic and saute along with some salt and ground black pepper and saute until the onions turn soft but not brown. Add the spinach and saute until the spinach is soft and tender. Turn off the heat.
- Let the spinach mixture cool slightly, then stir in the cashew filling, half the mozzarella shreds and parsley. Mix well.
- Coat the bottom of a 13 by 9 inch baking dish with some cooking spray and ladle half the marinara (about 1 ½ cups) into the dish, spreading it evenly.
- Fill each manicotti cylinder with the stuffing and then place in the baking pan in a single layer on top of the marinara. My baking dish is a bit narrow, so I arranged them diagonally, which also looked really pretty.
- Spoon over the remaining marinara to cover the manicotti, and sprinkle on the remaining mozzarella shreds. You can drizzle on some olive oil at this stage to help add some moisture and richness to your dish, but it's optional.
- Bake for 35 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.
Recipe notes
- To make this recipe gluten-free, use gf noodles
- To make it nut-free, skip the cashews and use more beans.
Tricia
I made this recipe today, January 19, 2022. It is so delicious. I am from the West Indies, so I added home-made pimento pepper seasoning and Barbadian pepper sauce. I had one can of Navy beans and one can of Cannellini beans, so I mixed the two. By the way, it was my first time making manicotti. Thank you for sharing this appetizing and healthy recipe.
Veronika
I had the same problem as Jenny, after I filled all canelloni cylinders, I had 1/2 of the ricotta filling left. So I spooned as much as I could over the pasta and covered it with the marinara, according to your advice. Now it's in the oven, curious how it turns out! ?
Olivia
Really delicious! Very creamy and flavorful. Apparently the pandemic has caused noodle manufacturers to stop making manicotti noodles (I literally checked 4 stores!), so I subbed them for jumbo shells. I boiled them lightly first and then piped the filling in with a piping bag. I used a vegan vodka sauce and it was so good! This recipe makes a lot of filling, so you may want to get more sauce than required so you can cover all the noodles. Really delicious recipe, will definitely make again!
Vaishali
So happy you loved it! Great idea using shells.
Jenny
Any suggestions for the remaining 1/2 of ricotta or did I miss something?
Vaishali
Do you mean the marinara? See step 7. The ricotta should all be stuffed into the pasta, but if you have any leftover just spoon on top of the pasta cylinders and then add the remaining marinara. Cheers.
Monika
This was delicious! My husband commented on how good it was before I could tell him it was vegan. It didn’t taste “beany” at all. I added a touch of miso paste to the filling to up the umami. I will make this again! Thank you for the recipe.
Vaishali
So happy to hear that Monika!
Siobhan Llinos Gale
I've never heard of this dish before but it looks delicious! Siobhan x
Heidi
Made this last night with reservations about the white beans being too beany, but to my pleasant surprise, the filling was fine. My British Italian husband approved, although we are still waiting to hear my Italian Italian mother-in-law’s verdict. She giggled when she saw me making it....
Vaishali
Hi Heidi, so happy you enjoyed it! Hope mom-in-law did too. 🙂