Lamb Ravioli With Brown Butter Sauce

This fantastic Lamb Ravioli recipe starts with homemade pasta, a delicious filling of seasoned ground lamb and creamy goat cheese. Then an impressive rich brown butter sage sauce tops the meat ravioli. These incredible lamb goat cheese filled pockets are perfect for a special first course or even Easter dinner. The meat filling and goat cheese compliment each other perfectly. The flavors are complex but the lamb ravioli recipe is very easy to make. Don't let the idea of making homemade ravioli intimidate you. It's really quite easy and satisfying. We're here to hold your hand every step of the way.

For this recipe you will need: bread  flour or "00" flour, olive oil, salt, eggs, ground lamb, garlic, frozen chopped spinach, rosemary, goat cheese, pepper, butter, lemon, sage, white wine. 

Jump to:

• Lamb ravioli with goat cheese background
• First Make the Meat Goat Cheese Ravioli Filling
• The ingredients for the filling
• Next make the pasta for the lamb ravioli
• The ingredients you need for a perfect pasta dough
• Assembling the lamb goat cheese ravioli
• How to make the lamb ravioli
• How to freeze the lamb ravioli
• Tips for making perfect ravioli
• Shapes and sizes of filled ravioli-like pasta
• How to cook ravioli
• Brown Butter Sage Sauce for Meat Ravioli
• Recipe
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

Lamb ravioli with goat cheese background

For many Italians, it wouldn't be Easter without agnello (lamb). This tradition of eating  lamb at Pasqua (Easter, in Italian) goes back thousands of years, spanning many cultures and religions.

It's almost mandatory to have lamb as the main course for the Easter meal although depending on the region it is served in various ways.

Usually, for Easter, we have a leg of lamb either grilled or roasted.

We checked out some of the traditional Easter lamb recipes

• costolette d'agnello (lamb chops) marinated and then grilled
• Abbacchio alla scottadito - grilled lamb that translates lamb that burns the fingers
• ragù d'agnello - lamb meat sauces.
• arrosto d'agnello - roast lamb
• stewed or roasted lamb meat used as filling for pasta

Since we previously made several of the recipes, we wanted to try something new. I kept thinking about the lamb meat used as pasta filling when I remembered the larger ravioli form we hadn't tried.

Well, we thought we'd kill two birds with one stone -- have lamb for Easter and use the new larger pasta form to make lamb ravioli.

We could either have the Goat Cheese Lamb Ravioli as a first course or have it as the main entree.

First Make the Meat Goat Cheese Ravioli Filling

The ingredients for the filling

• ground lamb
• goat cheese
• frozen chopped spinach
• rosemary
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

One of our secrets for maximizing the garlic and rosemary flavor is to put them in the pan with some olive oil and heat. Right away you're be able to smell the delicious aroma.

This is when we add the ground lamb to the pan, breaking up the pieces as it cooks. We sprinkle the meat with salt and pepper.

Once the lamb ravioli filling cooks and slightly cools, we put it in a food processor with the chopped spinach. We pulse the contents two or three times. This breaks up the meat and combines the spinach. The filling goes into a bowl.

We add the goat cheese to the meat while it's still warm. It's easier to mix.

Next make the pasta for the lamb ravioli

The ingredients you need for a perfect pasta dough

• olive oil
• salt
• "00" flour or unbleached bread flour
• jumbo eggs

Pasta dough may seem a little intimidating but it's really very simple. We use the food processor and it's amazing how fast it goes and the dough is always perfect. Press the dough into a ball, cover it and let it rest for 30 minutes. Divide the dough into fourths.

We use the attachment to our Kitchen Aid mixer and it works like a dream. We work the dough to a number 6 in thinness.

Follow the pasta directions in Italian Ravioli with Meat And Cheese.

The beauty of ravioli is that you can make the little pillows ahead of time and freeze. Then, when you're ready to eat them, just toss the frozen ravioli in boiling salted water.

Assembling the lamb goat cheese ravioli

If you made the filling ahead of time and refrigerated it, you'll have to warm it up a bit before filling the ravioli pockets. Our smaller ravioli form makes 12 pasta pockets at a time. The one we are using this time makes 10 pockets. You may use either one.

How to make the lamb ravioli

• lay the dough sheet over the egg carton form
• add a spoonful of filling to each pocket (don't overfill)
• lightly mist with water the filling and dough (this helps the top dough seal to the bottom)
• spread another dough sheet over the filling
• use a rolling pin to press the top dough into the bottom dough starting from center to edge and center to opposite edge
• pull the extra dough away from the form edge
• upend the form over wax or parchment paper on a baking tray
• cover with tea towel in-between batches
• you can keep using the extra dough and putting it through the pasta maker.
• we got a total of 60 lamb ravioli.

How to freeze the lamb ravioli

When we fill one baking sheet -- only one layer at a time -- we put the pasta pockets in the freezer. Once all of the ravioli are frozen we put them in freezer bag pressing out all of the air. Air is the enemy of frozen food.

We then put the freezer bag in a heavy duty freezer container. We're able to keep the ravioli one to two months easily without losing any of the quality.

When you're ready to eat the ravioli, drop the frozen ravioli into boiling salted water and cook for 6 minutes.

Tips for making perfect ravioli

1. The secret to making the perfect ravioli dough is the stretch. It's a must to have a pliable dough to pull and stretch over the fillings
2. Thickness is another important factor. If the ravioli is too thick it won't seal. Also, it will be difficult to cook and give an unpleasant chewy texture.
3. The best test is the shadow test. You want to be able to see the shadow of your hand behind the dough when you hold it up to the light.

Shapes and sizes of filled ravioli-like pasta

1. Classic Ravioli -  Usually a square shape featuring wavy edges and filled with just about anything you can dream up.
2. Raviolo - This is a single ravioli that is usually BIG. The larger shape makes it easier to fill with pieces of grilled veggies and thinly sliced meat. You could even put a meatball in it like our spicy Venison Meatball. WOW! Just thinking about it makes my mouth water.
3. Agnolotti - And interesting shape that isn't a circle or a square. They have a slight curve and a pinch in the back wall. This pasta is on our to-make list. There is a bend in the pasta that is perfect for holding whatever sauce you like.

How to cook ravioli

The saying is that the ravioli finished cooking when it floats to the top of the boiling water. That is true to a certain extent. It all depends on how you're finishing the ravioli.

The Raviolo and agnolotti finish cooking in the sauce so you'll only cook them for 2 minutes, just until they float back up to the top.

The ravioli will go for 5 minutes in the pot until al dente. Then top with your sauce and serve.

What happens if you overcook?

The ravioli will break and leak the filling. Wouldn't that be awful after all the work you went to make the delicious pasta pockets?

Brown Butter Sage Sauce for Meat Ravioli

The ingredients for the sauce

• butter
• fresh sage
• lemon
• pepper
• Parmesan cheese

As you heat the water to boil for the meat ravioli, start browning the butter. This is a wonderful sauce to serve with gnocchi as well as ravioli. We've even topped our baked fish with it and it was scrumptious!

For the complete recipe and directions for this tangy sauce, check out Ricotta Gnocchi with  Butter Lemon Sage Sauce.

We hope we've given you plenty of information to make the perfect ravioli and hopefully you'll try the lamb ravioli either for Easter or some other dinner when you want something special

Tutti a tavola è pronto

Un caro saluto e alla prossima.

YOU MAY NEED...

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What's new? Check out my All Our Way Store on Amazon. We'll be adding more items we love and use or wish we had to make cooking fun and easy. 

This is just like the Ravioli Maker that we have. It makes our filled pasta efforts so easy. We usually make a double recipe because we like having them on hand. Honey and I are like an assembly line as we crank out ravioli after ravioli. There are so many more fillings we want to want.

Recipe

This ravioli recipe is perfect. Thin pasta pockets filled with a delightful filling of seasoned ground lamb and goat cheese. The meat ravioli are topped with a light sauce of lemon, brown butter, and sage. The sauce compliments the delicious ravioli taste whereby a heavy tomato sauce would mask the flavor. The pasta is ideal for a special occasion. See if your family and guests don't find these ravioli some of the best they ever tasted!

And if your family is as crazy about lamb as we are, you'll love serving the Herb Roasted leg of Lamb done Italian style. The meat is always, tender and flavorful without a hint of dryness.

If you want to try a meatless ravioli, our scrumptious creamy ricotta and fresh spinach ravioli recipe is a classic any Italian nonna would be proud of.

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📖 Recipe