Butternut squash manicotti
These delicious butternut squash manicotti are topped with a creamy alfredo sauce.
Servings: 10 manicotti
Ingredients
Roasted butternut squash & garlic
- 1 butternut squash
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1/8 tsp salt
Butternut squash filling
- 2 cups roasted butternut squash (from previous step)
- 3 cloves roasted garlic (from previous step)
- 1 cup ricotta cheese
- 1/2 cup cup frozen spinach
- 2 tsp dried rosemary
- 1/4 tsp salt
Nutmeg alfredo sauce
- 2 cups cream
- 1 1/2 cup parmesan cheese (vegetarian parmesan style cheese)
- 1 tbsp cream cheese
- 2 tsp gluten free all purpose flour
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 4 sprigs fresh thyme (use only the leaves)
Other
- 10 gluten free manicotti noodles
Instructions
Roasted butternut squash & garlic
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Cut the butternut squash in half lengthwise and use a metal spoon to scrape out the seeds and stringy bits in the bulb. Brush the butternut squash with olive oil and top it with salt. Put the butternut squash on a baking sheet lined with tin foil with the flat side down.
- Peel the garlic and brush it with olive oil then put the garlic under butternut squash in the dome where the seeds used to be. This will prevent the garlic from overcooking and drying out
- Bake the butternut squash and garlic in the oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
Butternut squash filling
- Once the butternut squash is done cooking you can start to assemble the butternut squash filling. But first, start boiling a medium sized pot of water over high heat. We will use this in the next section to pre-cook the manicotti.
- Mash the roasted butternut squash and the roasted garlic then mix them with all of the other ingredients for the butternut squash filling.
- You will need to pipe the butternut squash filling into the center of the manicotti. If you do not have a proper piping bag you can scoop the filling into a plastic sandwich bag and cut 1 cm off of the corner of the bag to create an opening that is 1-2 cm wide.
Assembling the butternut squash manicotti
- Boil the manicotti noodles to pre-cook them according to the instructions on the package. Generally the manicotti will need to be boiled for around 4-5 minutes. You want the manicotti to be relatively firm when they are done so that you can stuff them without any difficulty.
- When the manicotti are done cooking you should pipe the butternut squash filling into the center of the manicotti. The entire noodle should be filled with the butternut squash filling.
- Make a roux for the nutmeg alfredo sauce by mixing the butter and flour in a large flat pan over medium heat. Cook the roux for 1-2 minutes then slowly incorporate the cream into the roux.
- Add the manicotti to the pan so that all of the manicotti are touching the bottom of the pan. Cook the manicotti over medium heat for 10-15 minutes or until the noodles are tender. Flip the noodles over every few minutes so that they cook evenly.
- When the manicotti are done cooking, reduce the heat to low and mix in the rest of the ingredients for the Alfredo sauce. You may need to remove the manicotti from the pan to mix the alfredo sauce depending on how large your pan is. You should add the cream cheese, nutmeg, and thyme leaves first then add the parmesan cheese after the cream cheese has dissolved into the cream.