Ricotta Cavatelli
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Ricotta Cavatelli is an authentic Italian pasta that’s pillowy light and seriously delicious. Our cavatelli pasta recipe is easy to make with only 4 ingredients!
Growing up in an Italian family, pasta on Sundays was a staple. My mom or grandparents would always have a pot of sauce filled with homemade ground beef meatballs, sausage, and braciola simmering for hours.
We still have Sunday sauce every week (this is the tomato sauce recipe we use!) and it’s still something I look forward to!
It’s a little different depending on what meat we have on hand – sometimes toss these turkey meatballs in, other weeks we opt for healthy bolognese, but no matter what – it’s delicious!
Cavatelli have always been my favorite pasta, and today I’m showing you how to make them at home!
These cavatelli are worth the extra time it takes to make them. They’re absolutely delicious and simply the best homemade pasta! We hope you love them as much as we do!
Liz’s Tips for Making Ricotta Cavatelli
- Adding Water: You may need to add a little more water depending on your ingredients. If your dough is not coming together at all after a minute, add 1 tablespoon at a time until it starts to stick together. DO NOT add more than this at a time; you can always add more water, but once you’ve added it to the bowl, you can’t take it away.
- Adding Flour: Conversely, if your dough is super sticky, you can add a little bit more flour. I’d add 1-2 tablespoons at a time.
- Consistency: The dough should almost feel a little thicker/drier than play dough. It shouldn’t be so soft that it turns to mush in your hands, but it also should be pliable enough that you can easily roll it/shape it.
- Use a lot of flour when rolling/shaping. Having the little balls coated thickly in flour will help them to slide down the pasta tool.
- Make sure you freeze the cavatelli before you cook them. If you put them directly in the pot after shaping, they will lose their form.
- Make sure to shake off excess flour after you have frozen the cavatelli. If you do not shake off the excess flour, you will wind up with gunky/cloudy pasta water.
- Stir frequently when boiling so that they don’t stick together.
ingredients
Substitutions and Recipe Variations
This is a tested family recipe, so this is the only way we make it! I can’t speak to how substitutions will work in this recipe.
Flour – Some people make their cavatelli with 00 flour and/or semolina flour. We aren’t sure if the amounts would be the same or not.
Salt – Any salt will work. We just happened to have pink himalayan salt in our spice cabinet.
Ricotta – Any whole milk ricotta will work. We do not recommend using low fat ricotta.
We also recommend getting a pasta board/ shaper. They’re less than $10 on amazon and make the process much quicker.
How to make Ricotta Cavatelli
This is just a summary of the steps involved in making the recipe. Scroll down to the recipe card for the full instructions, or click on the Jump to Recipe button, below.
Jump to Recipe
- In a bowl, mix together flour, salt, ricotta, and water with your hands.
- At first, the dough may seem sticky, but work the dough, squeezing it together for about 2 minutes.
- It will look a bit scraggly, don’t worry!
- After 2 minutes, the dough should be relatively formed together, enough that you can make a big ball.
- Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead for another 1-2 minutes. Set the dough aside and add more flour to your surface. Knead until smooth.
- Roll 2 tablespoons of dough into a thin strip (about ½ inch thick). Repeat until all the dough is rolled into long strips.
- Using scissors or knife, cut the strips into small balls (smaller than a dime). Toss with flour.
- Use the pasta tool or a fork to shape each piece of dough. We use the block, pressing firmly with our pointer finger or thumb, rolling the pasta downward.
- Place the cavatelli on a floured or parchment-lined baking sheet and freeze for 1 hour.
- When the cavatelli are frozen, pour them into a mesh strainer. Shake the excess flour off them.
Store in a ziploc freezer bag or container in the freezer until ready to eat. When you’re ready to cook, add the frozen cavatelli to a pot of boiling water. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until the pasta floats to the top of the pot.
Serve however you like!
Best Way to Shape Ricotta Cavatelli
Deciding whether to make the pasta with a fork, a pasta board, or a machine is essentially a matter of personal preference.
When you make ricotta cavatelli with a fork, the dough sometimes gets stuck in the prongs and does not roll off easily. Ultimately, it will take you longer to make. You can see the difference in the image above. The left are the cavatelli made with the pasta board, the right are the ones made with a fork.
The cavatelli made with the board curl better and have more ridges, which helps them soak up sauce better.
We do not have a pasta machine, but I’m sure you could use this dough in one! This pasta machine has fairly good ratings on Amazon.
Honestly, we think it’s more fun to make by hand. You can buy a pasta block for less than $10. If you have a family that wants to cook together, there’s also a two pack of blocks.
storage
Freezing: Before cooking, it’s best to keep your homemade pasta frozen. This prevents the pieces from sticking together, and freezing will keep the uncooked cavatelli fresh for up to six months.
No thawing is necessary—just gently drop the frozen cavatelli into a pot of boiling water! After a few minutes, they will finish cooking and rise to the surface of the water.
Reheating: Reheat cooked leftovers in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring until warmed through. Avoid reheating in the microwave, as the texture will become gummy.
Cavatelli Pasta Recipe FAQs
Gnocchi are typically potato-based, while cavatelli pasta is flour-based. Typically, gnocchi are small, round dumpling shapes with fork marks pressed into them. Cavatelli pasta is stretched in a longer, rolled shell shape.
The rolled shell-like shape of this pasta makes it perfect for holding any type of sauce! Our favorites are classics like marinara and tomato sauce as well as thicker sauces like our Healthy Alfredo Sauce. We sometimes put healthy turkey meatballs and sausage in the sauce.
Other classic Italian dishes
Ricotta Cavatelli
Ingredients
- 4 cups all-purpose white flour plus extra for shaping
- ½ tablespoon salt
- 1 lb whole milk ricotta
- ⅔ cup water
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, use your hands to combine flour, salt, ricotta and water. The dough may seem sticky at first, but continue working and squeezing it together for about 2 minutes.
- After 2 minutes, the dough should be relatively formed together – enough that you can shape it into a big ball.
- Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead for another 1-2 minutes. This helps the dough to become much smoother.
- Set the dough aside, then sprinkle your work surface lightly with flour.
- Roll about 2 tablespoons of dough into a thin strip, about ½ inch thick.
- Using a scissor or knife cut the strips into small balls (smaller than a dime)
- Toss the balls with flour and then use the pasta tool or fork to shape (see the post for step by step photos.) We use a pasta block and press firmly with our pointer finger or thumb, rolling the pasta downward. Be liberal with the flour when rolling/shaping!
- Place the pieces of cavatelli on a floured baking sheet as you’re making them – shaking the sheet every few minutes to make sure they’re not sticking to one another.
- Transfer the baking sheet of pasta to a freezer for about an hour, until the pieces are frozen.
- When the cavatelli are frozen, pour them into a mesh strainer. Shake the excess flour off of them. *Do not skip this step or you will wind up with gummy pasta that is not tasty.
- Keep the pasta in a freezer-safe Ziploc bag or container in the freezer until ready to cook it.
- When ready to cook, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add cavatelli to boiling water and cook for about 4-5 minutes, or until the pasta floats to the top of the pot.
- Use a slotted spoon to remove the pasta from the water or drain into a fine mesh colander. Plate and serve while warm with sauce of your choice.
Can I add Parmesan cheese or Romano cheese
I wouldn’t add it to the cavatelli. Add it on top when you’re eating them cooked.
I made these and loved them! Do you think I can use this ricotta dough recipe to make a long pasta such as fettuccine
No I don’t think that it would work. Anything you need to roll out like that is best to make with semolina flour 🙂
Hi ! I would like to make a bunch of these and dry them instead of freezing. Do you think these can be dried ?
From the reviews, these are Wonderful ! Can’t wait to try them !
These definitely can’t be dried because of the ricotta. They need to be frozen!
Thank You for getting back to me so quickly ! And Thank You for your answer ! :} Have a Great Day !
Does the water get added with other ingredients all at once
Yes – in step one. Mix everything together.
Wow! These were so easy, I made them in just under an hour. Hand kneeding can be intimidating, but this was so approachable. I can’t wait to have friends for dinner and impress them.
Amazing! Best pasta dough recipie I’ve tried. Made the cavatelli which turned out great but used some of the leftover dough to make raviolis and they were so good too. This is going to be my go to pasta dough recipie.
So glad you liked it, Sophie! Thank you! I need to try making raviolis with it!
These are so easy to make and delicious. Served with meatballs and sauce.
Thank you so much!
This was such an easy but very impressive Sunday dinner! My family went nuts over it and couldn’t believe I was able to make a restaurant quality dinner with so few ingredients. This will be a staple recipe in my house for special occasions
Thank you so much, Alyse! I’m so glad you enjoyed them 🙂
This recipe is awesome! I made it with my kids and it was a fun activity and they enjoyed the pasta afterward. I used Bob’s Red Mill GF flour due to a gluten allergy in the family, and it was still great!
So glad you liked it Mary Beth! And that it worked with the gluten free flour 🙂 That’s awesome to hear!
This is the easiest pasta I e ever made and it’s great …thank you for the recipe !
I’m so happy you liked it!
I used this recipe when making homemade pasta for the first time ever and let me tell you, it was amazing! The recipe was simple and the instructions were clear and precise. I always thought making homemade pasta would be insanely hard but this recipe made it easy! I swapped the white flour for whole wheat and it was great. yet another great recipe from the cleaneatingcouple!!!
So glad you liked them, Alyssa! Glad the whole wheat flour worked!! We are going to have to try that 🙂