I’ve always loved cannelloni, but filing those little dried pasta tubes is very fiddly and time consuming!   This one uses wholewheat lasagne sheets, and a light and tasty tofu kale filling, baked in a rich tomato sauce and topped with crispy breadcrumbs.  Simple enough for a family dinner but good enough for company too!  Also another great way to get kale into your children!

Tofu Kale Cannelloni

 

Print

Prep time

30 mins

Cook time

25 mins

Total time

55 mins

 

Author: Deb

Recipe type: Cannelloni

Cuisine: Italian

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• FILLING:
• 1 bunch kale
• 375g plain firm tofu
• ⅓ cup soy milk
• 2 tablespoons white miso paste
• 1 T American style mild mustard
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 T chopped fresh dill
• ¼ cup chopped walnuts
• 2 T nutritional yeast
• 1 small onion (slightly larger than a golf ball size) finely diced
• 1 large clove garlic, minced
• PASTA:
• 4-6 wholemeal lasagne sheets (I used instant variety)
• SAUCE:
• 375g of your favourite oil free Bolognese / tomato & basil style pasta sauce, a jar or homemade - (or a can of chopped tomatoes, blended with 1 tsp garlic granules, 1 tsp onion granules, 1 T tomato paste & 1 tsp sugar until smooth, then stir in 1 tsp dried Italian herbs).
• BREADCRUMB TOPPING:
• 1 slices wholemeal bread
• ¼ cup walnuts
• 1 T nutritional yeast
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp grated lemon zest

Instructions

1. De-stem the kale, roughly chop and simmer in large pot of boiling water for 8 mins until softened.
2. Rinse under cold water, take handfuls, firmly squeeze out the water and then slice each handful into 4-5 pieces.
3. Meanwhile, fry the onion and garlic in a small pan over a gentle heat with a splash of water until softened.
4. Mix the soy milk, miso, mustard and salt together in a small bowl
5. Put the tofu in a food processor and pulse a couple of times, before adding the kale, dill, walnuts, nutritional yeast, soy milk mixture and the onion and garlic mixture. Pulse until it is breadcrumb like, not so much that it becomes a green paste! Remove the blade and this is now ready for your lasagne sheets.
6. NB: If you don’t have a food processor, mash the tofu with a fork until like breadcrumbs, finely chop the kale and thoroughly mix all ingredients together in a large bowl.
7. Bring a large wide pan of water to the boil.
8. Prepare a lasagne style baking dish by lining it with half of your tomato sauce.
9. Boil each sheet of lasagne separately for 4 minutes, pop into a bowl of cold water or run under the cold tap; remove to a chopping board. As each one is done you can start layering your cannelloni dish, or cook them all ahead of time and layer between baking paper to prevent them sticking together. If storing in the fridge, wrap in cling film so they don’t dry out.
10. Heat the oven to 180 o Centigrade.
11. Take a lasagne sheet and cut it in half across the long side (i.e making two rectangles, not long skinny strips). Take one piece and scoop up approximately 2-3 tablespoons of the filling and arrange it in a tube shape across the lasagne, then roll up. The two edges should overlap by about 1-2 cms, so use this as your guide to how much to put in!
12. Place your cannelloni tube in the sauce at one side of your dish.
13. Keep this going as your boil your sheets, cut, fill, roll and place.
14. Pack them snugly against each other. You should need 4-6 full lasagne sheets, making 8-12 cannelloni before you use all your filling and they ideally will just fill up your dish. You may need to cut the last one in half to fill up the gap in the corner. Mine looked like this:
15. 
16. I used 5 sheets, so 10 cannelloni.
17. Pour the rest of the sauce over the cannelloni.
18. For the breadcrumb topping, put all the ingredients in a food processor or small chopper, process until breadcrumbs. Sprinkle over the top of the cannelloni.
19. Place in the oven for 25 minutes or until breadcrumbs crisp and sauce is bubbling. If breadcrumbs are browning too quickly, cover the dish with a sheet of foil.

3.2.2807