Chilli Beef Cannelloni – Slimming Friendly

I am fairly sure that I can eat chill con-carne or pasta every day and never get bored of it but sometimes I just can’t decide what I want more so this time I have just used some left-over Chilli Con-Carne and a few lasagne sheets to make this lovely Chilli-Beef Cannelloni.

For this dish to work you will need to have some left-over Chilli Con-Carne but it can also be made as a traditional beef cannelloni with bolognaise if you prefer.

Like all cannelloni dishes, it is made up of three main parts, the pasta, the filling and the sauce.

Cannelloni Tubes.

For the cannelloni tubes, I am using fresh lasagne sheets, but this can be made just as easy with dry cannelloni tubes, I would however, remove the beans from the chilli mixture as they can make filling the cannelloni tubes a little tricky.

Low Fat Cheese Sauce.

For my sauce I am using low-fat cottage cheese, one large egg, a few herbs, some garlic, a spring onion and some salt and pepper to taste. Add all of the sauce ingredients to a blender and blitz until smooth. Grate some nutmeg into the sauce, fold through with a spoon and set aside for later.

The Filling

I am using some Chilli con-Carne for this dish; the recipe can be found on my website here. You can of course also use a traditional beef cannelloni with bolognaise if you prefer or just about any filling that you would like.

Some other fillings to try with your cannelloni can be simple as Chicken & Bacon, Spinach & Ricotta, Mushroom Cannelloni, and just about any of your favourite fillings can make a great cannelloni dish.   

The biggest thing to remember about the sauce is that it needs to be cold especially if you are using pasta sheets. If the sauce is warm, it will very probably be too runny for folding into pasta sheets casing the pasta run out of the pasta tubes.

Ingredients

Bringing it all Together.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 Degrees Celsius (temperature conversion) and spray the bottom of a baking dish with fry-light to coat. This will help to stop the cannelloni from sticking to the bottom of the dish when baking.

Bring a pot of water to the boil, add some salt and the pasta sheets, boil for a couple of minutes, just enough to soften the pasta for rolling. Remove the pasta sheets to a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process and the pasta sticking together.

Add all of the sauce ingredients to a blender (I use a NutriBullet but any blender will do) and blitz until smooth. Grate some nutmeg into the sauce, fold through with a spoon and set aside for later.

Using an oven tray to work on (as this can get messy) and some kitchen towel to the side, take one of the pasta sheets and pat dry with the kitchen towel to remove any excess water. Lay the sheet on the baking tray and add a spoonful of the cold filing at one end of the pasta sheet.

Roll the pasta sheet up, tucking in the filling as you go. Once the pasta sheet has been rolled into a filled cannelloni tube, transfer to the baking dish and continue with the remaining sheets until all of the sheets have been filler, rolled and transferred to the baking dish.

Spoon on the sauce until just covered and the mozzarella cheese and finish with some finely grated nutmeg.

Bake in the centre of the oven for approximately 25 minutes or until the cheese is bubbling an d golden in colour.

Chilli Beef Cannelloni – Slimming Friendly

Recipe by Steve WalkerCourse: MainCuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Medium

Prep time

15

minutes

Cooking time

30

minutes

Total time

1

hour 

10

minutes

Slimming Friendly Chilli-Beef Cannelloni

Ingredients

• Ingredients for the cannelloni (per person)

• 3 sheets of fresh Lasagne, (small Tesco size lasagne sheets, if you have the larger fresh lasagne sheets from other supermarkets, cut the sheets in half).

• 3 tablespoons of SW Chilli Con Carne (recipe here)

• 30g Grated Mozzarella Cheese (per person)
  

• 
  Ingredients for the sauce (4 portions)

• 3 tablespoons of low-fat cottage cheese

• One large egg

• One large garlic clove crushed

• 1 spring onion chopped.

• ½ tsp salt

• ¼ tsp. crack black pepper

• ¼ tsp. paprika

• Pinch of chilli flakes

• 1/4 nutmeg grated (or ¼ tsp mace)

Directions

• Pre-heat the oven to 180 Degrees Celsius (temperature conversion) and spray the bottom of a baking dish with fry-light to coat. This will help to stop the cannelloni from sticking to the bottom of the dish when baking.
• Bring a pot of water to the boil, add some salt and the pasta sheets, boil for a couple of minutes, just enough to soften the pasta for rolling. Remove the pasta sheets to a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process and the pasta sticking together.
• Add all of the sauce ingredients to a blender (I use a NutriBullet but any blender will do) and blitz until smooth. Grate some nutmeg into the sauce, fold through with a spoon and set aside for later.
• Using an oven tray to work on (as this can get messy) and some kitchen towel to the side, take one of the pasta sheets and pat dry with the kitchen towel to remove any excess water. Lay the sheet on the baking tray and add a spoonful of the cold filing at one end of the pasta sheet.
  
  Roll the pasta sheet up, tucking in the filling as you go. Once the pasta sheet has been rolled into a filled cannelloni tube, transfer to the baking dish and continue with the remaining sheets until all of the sheets have been filler, rolled and transferred to the baking dish.
• Spoon on the sauce until just covered and the mozzarella cheese and finish with some finely grated nutmeg.

Notes

• Some other fillings to try with your cannelloni can be simple as Chicken & Bacon, Spinach & Ricotta, Mushroom Cannelloni, and just about any of your favourite fillings can make a great cannelloni dish.   
• The biggest thing to remember about the sauce is that it needs to be cold especially if you are using pasta sheets. If the sauce is warm, it will very probably be too runny for folding into pasta sheets casing the pasta run out of the pasta tubes.
• Use an oven tray to work on (as this can get messy) and some kitchen towel at the side to pat dry with the kitchen towel to remove any excess water.

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