This recipe for vegan tortellini starts with fresh homemade vegan pasta dough. It’s then stuffed with a cheesy, vegan basil ricotta. Lastly, I covered the tortellini with a velvety, creamy, alfredo sauce because tortellini alfredo is amazing (but feel free to use whichever sauce you prefer).
I haven’t been able to find vegan tortellini at the store. I’ve seen ravioli and gnocchi, but no tortellini. As an avid pasta lover, vegan tortellini has been on my recipe wish list since day one.
Here’s what we have going for these tortellini:
FRESH PASTA DOUGH. ♡ Made with three simple ingredients. A mixture of semolina flour, all-purpose flour, and water. Rolled out flat using a pasta machine, or by hand if you don’t have one of those.
VEGAN RICOTTA. ♡ We re-worked our original ricotta recipe to bring you an even cheesier version. It’s thicker, making it easier to fill and shape the tortellini. For this recipe, we used a piping bag to get the perfect amount onto each square of dough. You can press your tofu very easily with this tofu press.
VEGAN ALFREDO. ♡ A velvety alfredo sauce made with 100% plant-based ingredients. Cauliflower, garlic, shallots, nutritional yeast, almond milk, and vegetable broth blended together to create a sauce that you’re going to want to straight up drink. Hey — I’m not judging!
You may be a little worried about rolling these bad boys. I mean, they look a little intimidating at first. But I swear to you, they are easy to roll.
Here’s how to roll the vegan tortellini:
- Put about a teaspoon of ricotta in the center of a small square of pasta dough rolled out thin. We used our new pasta dough machine but you can always do it by hand, too. My squares were about 1.5 inches on each side.
- Dip you finger in water and outline the edges of the square. Fold the dough squares in half diagonally, pressing the edges together to form a tight seal.
- Then, wrap two opposite corners around your finger and press to seal. Use a small dab of water on the corner if needed. (see photo below).
- Fold the remaining corner back and down, forming the tortellini.
- pro-tip: make sure your work surface has plenty of sprinkled flour so that the dough doesn’t stick to your counter.
Depending on the size of your pasta squares, this recipe can make up to 60 tortellini. I recommend splitting the pasta dough in quarters and doing one quarter at a time. Store the remaining dough wrapped in plastic so it doesn’t start to harden while you’re filling the tortellini.
Each time I make this recipe, I end up with a different number of tortellini – but always too much to eat in one sitting (although you can’t say I haven’t tried ?).
Luckily, this recipe freezes well, just take care not to let them stick together. The tortellini are easy peasy to reheat, too. Boil for a few minutes and enjoy!
This recipe for vegan tortellini starts with fresh homemade vegan pasta dough. It’s then stuffed with a cheesy, vegan basil ricotta. Lastly, I covered the tortellini with a velvety, creamy, alfredo sauce because tortellini alfredo is amazing (but feel free to use whichever sauce you prefer).
- 1 cup semolina flour
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup water
- 14 ounces extra-firm tofu pressed
- 2/3 cup cashews
- 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
- 6 cloves garlic
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 10 basil leaves
- 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper, each
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Combine the semolina flour, all-purpose flour, and water in a medium bowl. Mix together until a soft dough forms, adding more all-purpose flour or water, one tablespoon at a time, as needed.
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Knead for 5 minutes to form a smooth dough. Cover in plastic wrap and rest in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes.
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Add all vegan ricotta ingredients to a food processor. Blend on high until the mixture is smooth and thick.
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Work with a quarter of the dough at a time. Leave the remaining dough wrapped in plastic while working so that it stays soft.
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Using a pasta machine, or by hand, roll the dough out thin. Cut the dough in even squares, about 1.5 inches on each side. Make sure your work surface has plenty of sprinkled flour so that the dough doesn’t stick to your counter.
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Fill a piping bag with the vegan ricotta (or use a teaspoon to distribute the ricotta). Pipe about a teaspoon of ricotta in the middle of each square of dough.
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Dip your finger in water and run it along the edges of each square of dough. Fold the square diagonally across the center, over the ricotta. Push the edges to form a tight seal so that no ricotta leaks out while cooking.
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Then, wrap the two opposite corners around your finger and press to seal. Use a small dab of water on the corner if needed (see photo). Fold the remaining corner back and down, forming the tortellini.
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Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and add a generous amount of salt. Add tortellini, working in batches to not overcrowd the pot. Boil for about 5 minutes and remove with a slotted spoon. Serve warm with sauce (see notes)*
- *We think alfredo sauce goes perfectly with tortellini, but feel free to use marinara or vodka sauce instead. Tortellini also work well in a vegetable-based soup.
- Freeze the extra raw tortellini (before boiling).
Alaina
My husband and I made these 2 nights ago and they were SO GOOD! I am Italian and when I went vegan I really missed eating all the hearty italian food like ravioli and tortellini. I had some serious taste memories going on when we ate these. I will definitely be making these again! We had a lot of leftover filling, and I’m not quite sure why, but that just means we are going to use it for either lasagna or ravioli. It also took us longer than an hour, but I think that’s because we were trying to figure out how to fold the pasta dough, once that was mastered it was smooth sailing. Thanks for the wonderful and simple recipe! 🙂
pasta-based
Thank you so much for the awesome comment, Alaina! So glad you liked the tortellini recipe, it’s one of my favorites!
Shannon Sutter
I’ve been craving vegan stuffed pasta for a long time- all the store bought ones are pricey and usually don’t blow me away. Boy these were a labor of love, but oh my god they were amazing! Folding the tortellini wasn’t that hard either, and it made enough for me and my partner to have a whole other meal. It came out better than I thought for sure, the pasta was chewy and perfect and the filling really stuffed up while cooking so the texture was perfect. I served it with pesto and sprinkle of fyh parm. I also ended up with a bit too much filling but I used it to make stuffed crust pizza with dabs of the ricotta on top- so no complaints from me ending up with extra filling. I’m already excited for upcoming holidays as this will be the perfect make ahead meal to wow my family. Thanks for the recipe!