I have a tendency to get nervous when cooking for new people. The thing is this: I always try to make an educated guess as to what kind of food someone might be into, and I just about always get it wrong. Like if I’m entertaining the guest who’s traveled all over the world, I assume they’ll be super adventurous and then I go and feed them vindaloo and end up burning their tongue. Or I’ll have those occasions when I’m feeding omnivores so I assume they want something pretty basic like spaghetti, and then they proceed to tell me how much they’d have loved some tofu or a curry or that vindaloo I fed to last week’s company. So I’m working on coming up with a list of go-to dishes that I think everyone will love.
Folks, this is number one on that list. Wait, isn’t vegan manicotti weird? Too weird maybe to feed your omnivorous guests that have never eaten vegan food? No, actually it’s perfect, because I promise, you’d never, ever, ever, guess that this one is vegan. The ricotta and the pink sauce are so rich and creamy that anyone would dig this dish. The sauce is a simple tomato sauce made extra creamy (and pink!) with some coconut milk and thickened with bit of flour. The flour also helps the sauce to form a nice rich coating on the pasta while it bakes, which works great in dishes like this because you don’t have cheese to sprinkle on top.
And as for the coconut milk, I realized back when I created this spicy tomato sauce recipe that coconut milk works great in tomato-based sauces, and the tartness of tomatoes pretty much completely disguises the coconut flavor. The ricotta is based with a mix of cashews and tofu. Blend the cashews up with some non-dairy milk and lemon juice until smooth, then blend in the tofu, but keep it a bit chunky so you have a ricotta-like texture. Finally, in with some sautéed kale. The kale goes so well with the creamy ricotta and blush sauce!
Ladle some sauce into your pan, and then stuff your manicotti. I used a pastry bag to pipe the filling into my pasta, but a zippy bag with the corner snipped off works too. The rest of the sauce goes on top, and then everything gets baked until bubbly.
Tips for Making Perfect Vegan Manicotti
If it’s available, try using lacinato kale (also known as dinosaur or Tuscan kale). Curly kale was all I could get my hands on this time, but it still came out delicious. I recommend using full fat coconut milk for this, but light or another type of non-dairy milk would work as a substitute if you’re trying to keep the fat content down or just don’t like coconut. Shortcuts! Maybe you’ve noticed that this recipe is a bit of a project? I love it the way it is and recommend going all out if you have the time, but I understand if you don’t. You can speed things along by making the sauce and/or filling in advance, using your favorite jarred sauce in place of the blush sauce in the recipe (you’ll need about 4 cups), or even skipping the kale part of the filling. Do you always tear your manicotti shells while filling them? Me too! If you see a small tear at one end, try piping the filling in through the other end. This will help prevent the tear from getting any bigger. Make sure to chop your kale finely. Otherwise it could clog up the tip of your pastry bag.
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