This vegan cannelloni is stuffed with a spinach and tofu ricotta, layered with marinara sauce, topped with vegan cheese sauce and baked to perfection in the oven. It’s insanely good, surprisingly easy, and perfect for a fancy dinner!
The wonderful thing about this vegan cannelloni is that it looks a LOT harder than it actually is. It’s actually a really simple recipe.
There are a few moving parts: you have to make a double batch of tofu ricotta and some vegan cheese sauce. You have to stuff the cannelloni and layer it in your baking dish with marinara sauce and top it with cheese sauce, and then you have to bake it in the oven.
But each step is surprisingly simple. It’s a little time consuming and takes around an hour and twenty minutes to make, but entirely worth it.
It’s perfect for a fancy-ish dinner or dinner party. It also keeps really well so leftovers are no problem at all.
Ingredients You’ll Need For Cannelloni:
Ingredient Notes
- Marinara sauce – you can use any brand, just choose a jar of your favorite marinara sauce. It saves heaps of time to use a store-bought option for this instead of making it from scratch.
- Firm tofu – forms the base of our tofu ricotta. You can use firm or extra firm tofu. It does not need to be pressed first.
Ingredients For Vegan Cheese Sauce
Sauce Notes
- Soy milk – you can switch this out for pretty much any non-dairy milk that heats well.
- Dijon mustard – this adds cheesy flavor to your sauce. Any prepared yellow mustard will work though.
How To Make Vegan Cannelloni – Step By Step
You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.
Tofu Ricotta:
- Add crushed garlic to a bowl with fresh lemon juice and let it soak for 5 minutes.
- Then add tofu to a bowl and mash it with a fork.
- Add the mashed tofu, crushed garlic and lemon juice, olive oil, nutritional yeast, oregano, onion powder, sea salt and ground black pepper to the food processor
- Pulse the food processor until the ingredients are well combined but the texture is still chunky.
- Transfer the tofu ricotta to a mixing bowl and add in chopped baby spinach. Mix together.
Vegan Cheese Sauce:
- Add olive oil to a pot and heat on medium to high heat until the oil is hot. Add all purpose flour.
- Fry the flour in the oil briefly and then add in soy milk, stirring vigorously all the time.
- Heat the sauce, alternately whisking and stirring with a wooden spoon while it heats to prevent any lumps.
- Bring to the boil and then continue to stir until the sauce has thickened.
- When the sauce has thickened, remove it from the heat and add in nutritional yeast, dijon mustard, salt, ground black pepper, onion powder and garlic powder. Stir in.
- Let the sauce cool and thicken while you work on the rest of the recipe.
Assemble:
- Add a layer of marinara sauce to the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish.
- Fill a piping bag with the tofu ricotta and pipe it into the cannelloni tubes.
- Lay the cannelloni tubes in the baking dish on top of the marinara sauce. It’s okay if some of the tubes have to lie vertically instead of horizontally, this will depend on the size of your cannelloni tubes. Just fit in as many as you can so that there aren’t gaps in your dish.
- Cover the stuffed tubes with the remaining marinara sauce.
- Add the vegan cheese sauce to the top and smooth it down.
- Bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.
- Top with fresh chopped parsley and a sprinkle of ground black pepper and serve.
Chef’s Tips
The cheese sauce is optional. It does add an extra 20 or so minutes time to the recipe since we make this cheese sauce from scratch. So if you have a good brand of vegan cheese you can just top the dish with grated vegan cheese instead and bake it like that. However, the vegan cheese sauce is super good, so I think it’s worth the extra 20 minutes.
Serving. Top it with some fresh chopped parsley and a sprinkle of ground black pepper. Serve it alongside a simple salad like our vegan chickpea salad.
Recipe FAQ
The easiest way by far is to pipe the filling into the cannelloni tubes using a piping bag. You don’t need to add a piping tip, you just need to fill the piping bag with the tofu ricotta filling and then pipe it into the cannelloni tubes.
If you can get hold of gluten free cannellloni tubes then sure! For the vegan cheese sauce you can make it gluten free by using a gluten free all purpose flour blend in place of the regular flour.
You could make the tofu ricotta and the vegan cheese sauce up to 2 days in advance. Let the cheese sauce cool and then refrigerate. Then assemble and bake when you’re ready.
Leftovers keep very well in the fridge for 3-4 days and can be reheated in the microwave.
You can assemble your cannelloni and then freeze before baking, and then when you’re ready add a few extra minutes of baking time. Or you can freeze the baked cannelloni. Let it cool completely and then freeze for up to 2 months.
More Vegan Pasta Recipes
- Vegan Lasagna
- Vegan Pasta Bake
- Vegan Stuffed Shells
- Baked Vegan Mac and Cheese
- Vegan Baked Ziti
- Vegan Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Cannelloni
Ingredients
Tofu Ricotta:
- 2 Cloves Garlic Crushed
- 4 Tbsp Lemon Juice Freshly Squeezed
- 28 ounces Firm Tofu (800g)
- 4 Tbsp Olive Oil
- ¼ cup Nutritional Yeast Flakes (15g)
- 2 tsp Dried Oregano
- 2 tsp Onion Powder
- 1 tsp Sea Salt
- ½ tsp Ground Black Pepper
- 1 cup Baby Spinach (30g) Chopped
Vegan Cheese Sauce:
- 3 Tbsp Olive Oil
- 2 Tbsp All Purpose Flour
- 2 cups Soy Milk (480ml)
- ¼ cup Nutritional Yeast Flakes (15g)
- 1 tsp Dijon Mustard
- ¼ tsp Salt
- ⅛ tsp Ground Black Pepper
- ½ tsp Onion Powder
- ½ tsp Garlic Powder
Assembling:
- 20 Tubes Cannelloni
- 2 ½ cups Marinara Sauce (600ml)
Serving:
- Fresh Chopped Parsley
- Ground Black Pepper
Instructions
- Tofu Ricotta: Add crushed garlic to a bowl with fresh lemon juice and let it soak for 5 minutes.
- Then add tofu to a bowl and mash it with a fork.
- Add the mashed tofu, crushed garlic and lemon juice, olive oil, nutritional yeast, oregano, onion powder, sea salt and ground black pepper to the food processor.
- Pulse the food processor until the ingredients are well combined but the texture is still chunky.
- Transfer the tofu ricotta to a mixing bowl and add in chopped baby spinach. Mix together.
- Vegan Cheese Sauce: Add olive oil to a pot and heat on medium to high heat until the oil is hot. Add all purpose flour.
- Fry the flour in the oil briefly and then add in soy milk, stirring vigorously all the time.
- Heat the sauce, alternately whisking and stirring with a wooden spoon while it heats to prevent any lumps.
- Bring to the boil and then continue to stir until the sauce has thickened.
- When the sauce has thickened, remove it from the heat and add in nutritional yeast, dijon mustard, salt, ground black pepper, onion powder and garlic powder. Stir in.
- Let the sauce cool and thicken while you work on the rest of the recipe.
- Assemble: Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Add a layer of marinara sauce to the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish.
- Fill a piping bag with the tofu ricotta and pipe it into the cannelloni tubes.
- Lay the cannelloni tubes in the baking dish on top of the marinara sauce. It’s okay if some of the tubes have to lie vertically instead of horizontally, this will depend on the size of your cannelloni tubes. Just fit in as many as you can so that there aren’t gaps in your dish.
- Cover the stuffed tubes with the remaining marinara sauce.
- Add the vegan cheese sauce to the top and smooth it down.
- Bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
- Top with fresh chopped parsley and a sprinkle of ground black pepper and serve.
Notes
- Firm tofu – You can use firm or extra firm tofu. It does not need to be pressed first.
- Soy milk – you can switch this out for pretty much any non-dairy milk that heats well.
- Dijon mustard – this adds cheesy flavor to your sauce. Any prepared yellow mustard will also work.
- Marinara sauce – you can use any brand, just choose a jar of your favorite marinara sauce.
- Cannelloni pasta tubes – we used 20 cannelloni tubes. You may end up using a few less or a few more depending on the size of your tubes. Just use as many as you can fit in your dish. It’s fine if some of them lie vertically instead of horizontally, just make sure to fill up the space in your dish.
- Gluten-free: If you can get hold of gluten free cannellloni tubes then sure! For the vegan cheese sauce you can make it gluten free by using a gluten free all purpose flour blend in place of the regular flour.
- Make ahead: You could make the tofu ricotta and the vegan cheese sauce up to 2 days in advance. Let the cheese sauce cool and then refrigerate. Then assemble and bake when you’re ready.
- Storing: Leftovers keep very well in the fridge for 3-4 days and can be reheated in the microwave.
- Freezing: Let it cool completely and then freeze for up to 2 months.
This one of my new favorites!!
Am making this for first time. Do you boil the cannelloni tubes before filling and baking?
Hi Deborah, no we did not. They cook during the 30 minutes bake time. 🙂
You always do wuch a good job presenting recipes and organizing the preparation process for these wonderful dishes. I appreciate the notes and detail you add to each recipe. Thank you so much for makimg my life easier ❤️
Thanks so much for the lovely comment Joy! Really appreciated. 🙂