One of the most significant changes to our lives over the years has been evening activities with our child, which has meant less time for making dinner. While it’s been a shift, I’ve come to rely heavily on filling items that freeze well, including dumplings, soups, and filled pasta such as this kabocha ravioli.
Kabocha Ravioli, a Friend to Butter
Whenever I turn to butter as a sauce, I steer away from ricotta and into vegetable-filled pasta. This way, the richness can come from the sauce, and the filling is a companion rather than overwhelming in heaviness. Of course, you can easily use cheese ravioli and finish the dish with more vegetables.
Bulk up the vegetables and greens
Regarding what goes well with this kabocha ravioli and butter combination, I recommend blanching greens such as spinach or kale and toss in at the end. Alternatively, extra roasted squash would be a nice touch as well.
Beyond the greens and squash, I always like to serve dishes like this with a punchy salad that is big of acid. This way you get extra vegetables and a nice balance with the richness of the pasta.
Ravioli, homemade or store-bought
Given my novice pasta-making, I appreciate others’ in-depth information about making and shaping pasta. I love Meryl’s ravioli 101 post, which I highly recommend reading before diving into this homemade kabocha ravioli.
Also, I can’t stress this enough: store-bought ravioli works well with this recipe and keeps it super simple. You can often find pre-made pasta in refrigerator cases, or if you have a larger farmers market around, I feel like there’s always someone selling fresh pasta.
Make it Vegan
Luckily, these days, companies like Miyoko’s make a decent vegan alternative to butter, which works great as a compound butter base. Then, for the pasta and filling, use an eggless pasta dough and replace the mascarpone cheese with a bit of vegan cream cheese or leave it out altogether- it’s still the kabocha ravioli, just vegan!
