The Secret Behind This Traditional Southern Italian Easter Recipe

Try out this delightful Italian Vegetarian Roll with eggs, spinach, and ricotta! This puff pastry roll is a perfect recipe for a delicious and satisfying meal. #vegetarian #eggs #spinach #ricotta #tortellinotime #delightfulrecipe #puffpastryroll

Indulge in this delicious Italian Easter recipe for a Vegetarian Easter Roll with Eggs. This Spinach Ricotta Roll is a perfect dish for your Easter celebration! Made with puff pastry and filled with a rich spinach ricotta mixture, this dish is sure to impress your family and friends. Watch the video to learn how to make this mouthwatering dish for your Easter feast!

Ciao and welcome to TortellinoTime. This is my take on Torta Pasqualina – a traditional Italian Easter pie filled with spinach, ricotta, cheese, and whole eggs. Instead of the classic pie, I have made a puff pastry roll: simple, delicious, and just as festive.

This vegetarian Easter recipe is perfect for lunch, dinner, or sharing with family. I walk you through each step, including how to cook the spinach without boiling away its flavour, and how to wrap and bake it with a golden crust.

You can also use spring greens, cavolo nero, or cottage cheese if you prefer – it is a flexible, humble recipe with a strong sense of tradition.

Buona Pasqua, and thank you for watching.

00:00 – Welcome & What Is Pasqualina
01:03 – Garlic & Spinach Prep
01:55 – Cooking the Spinach My Way
02:40 – Boiling & Peeling Eggs Easily
03:24 – Reducing Moisture from the Spinach
04:05 – Mixing with Ricotta, Nutmeg, Cheese
05:24 – Tasting & Adjusting the Filling
05:48 – Assembling the Puff Pastry Roll
06:22 – Rolling & Patching Techniques
07:49 – Egg Wash & Sunflower Seeds
08:52 – Into the Oven
09:29 – Baked & Resting
09:50 – Julie Appears at Dusk
10:42 – Slicing, Serving, and Storing

A PDF OF THIS RECIPE IS AVAILABLE BELOW AND IN THE PINNED COMMENT – THANK YOU https://drive.google.com/file/d/12OjEboXDJRf7x9VZyEknxtIFVjy1uXiY/view?usp=sharing

✅ Ingredients
320g puff pastry
400g fresh spinach
250g ricotta cheese
4 hard-boiled eggs
1 garlic clove
Nutmeg to taste
Salt and pepper
2–3 tbsp grated Parmesan or Pecorino
1 egg yolk for brushing
1 tbsp sunflower seeds (optional)

✅ Instructions
Gently cook garlic and spinach in a pan without boiling – this keeps the flavour in. Let it cool, then mix with ricotta, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and cheese. Taste and adjust.

Roll out the puff pastry and layer with the spinach mixture, leaving space around the edges. Place hard-boiled eggs across the centre and gently roll everything into a log. Patch any small holes.

Brush with egg yolk and sprinkle with seeds if you like. Bake at 180°C (fan) for 30–35 minutes until golden and puffed. Let rest before slicing. Serve warm or cold. Keeps for 3–4 days in the fridge.

#vegetarianrecipes #italianrecipes #SpinachRicotta #PuffPastryRoll #TortaPasqualina #EasterRecipe #TortellinoTime

Ciao and welcome back to TortellinoTime. We’re 
getting very close to Easter, so I thought I’ll do something which is very typical of southern Italy, 
very often made for Easter. It’s an adaptation of something called torta pasqualina. Torta stands 
for cake, pasqualina stands for Easter. But this is not going to be a sweet cake; it’s going 
to be a savory cake. However, I did say it’s an adaptation. Instead of making a cake, I will be 
making a roll using some puff pastry, but also the inside is going to be slightly different. 
There will be a little Francesco’s adaptation, which frankly I think is going to taste a 
little bit better than the classic one. Anyway, I’ll show you what to do. As it is typical of 
Easter, I will be using eggs. And I’ve just boiled four eggs. You might already be aware of this, but 
I’m going to show you my little trick. Hot water, I will dilute it initially with some cold water. 
I will drain it, and I will refill it with cold water, and I’ll turn it off. I’ll leave them to 
cool down for a few minutes, and you will see that when I come to take the eggs out of the shell, 
they’ll come out very easily. In the meantime, I am removing the skin from a large clove of 
garlic and I’m slicing it into very little pieces, like this. Only one in this case, and nowhere 
another. The garlic will release even more flavor when I heat it up. I will be putting this 
on the hob and adding some spinach in a moment, but I just wanted to mention that this is 
the first variation from the classic recipe. Generally in Italy, they boil the spinach, 
then drain the water, and continue with the rest of the recipe. I prefer doing it like this 
because when you are boiling spinach in water, you actually dilute the goodness and you lose 
a lot of the flavor. Whereas like this, all of the goodness from the spinach is trapped within 
the pan, and you get a lot more flavor. And also, there is the garlic, of course. Temperature is 
medium-high, and the garlic has been sitting for a minute. Don’t leave it too long before you 
add the spinach, otherwise, the garlic will burn and then become really, really bitter. Although it 
looks like there’s quite a lot there—and there is, I suppose—do not worry. Just pile it in and the 
spinach will considerably shrink as it cooks. I’ll just put the lid on and I’ll turn the 
temperature down to medium-low now. Here, #4 will do fine, and I’ll leave it for a few 
minutes. As I already mentioned, do not worry, the spinach will really shrink to something like 
30% of the current volume. So you will see in a few minutes. But let’s take a look at the eggs 
and see if my trick has worked. You can see that actually some of them broke while cooking, typical 
of eggs, so I’ll give you them. We’re using the whole one here, this one. And look how easy it 
is to actually remove the shell. No trouble, no fuss. Less than 5 seconds. I’ll do it again. 
One, two. And there you go. Look. Perfect. Absolutely wonderful. And here is my last one, and 
the shells can go to Julie. She has got a compost bin, and she just crushes everything and we put it 
in the garden for compost. Just in the meantime, let’s have a look at the spinach. And as you can 
see, they’re already half their size, and the big sense of grandeur is disappearing progressively. 
So I’ll put it back on for a few minutes and they’ll be ready. And as predicted, look, they’ve 
shrunk in size considerably, and they are nearly, nearly ready. However, if you look at the 
bottom, there is a little bit of water, which I don’t want, and equally well, I don’t 
want to drain it either. So what I’ll do is turn the temperature up on high and I will leave it to 
cook for another minute or two until the water has evaporated. Literally, within a couple of minutes, 
all of the water has evaporated and they are still lovely and moist, and all of the goodness has been 
retained. Of course, what I’ll do next, though, is spread them nice and wide. I want them to cool 
down a little faster, and by spreading them wide, they will cool down quicker. Then I’ll be adding 
some ricotta. So I’ll see you in a few minutes. The spinach pasqualina is always married with 
ricotta cheese, which is what I’m going to be using today. But if you don’t like ricotta cheese, 
you can also use cottage cheese if you like, or even mascarpone. But any creamy cheese would be 
fine. Obviously, I am sticking to traditions today as much as I can, and I’m going to add 3 cups of 
ricotta, followed by a sprinkle of salt. And of course, a little… very, very key ingredient for 
the pasqualina is nutmeg. So if you like nutmeg, definitely add it in. On the other hand, if you’re 
not keen, do not put it in; it’s not the end of the world. But it definitely adds a supreme 
flavor to the final product, and I’m going to be very generous because we love it, followed by 
some Italian grated cheese. This is Parmigiano cheese. You can also use pecorino, or if you want, 
you can also use cheddar or any cheese you like, as long as you can grate it. But of course, if you 
want to stick to Italian traditions, you should be using Parmesan cheese, and I’m going to go in 
with my fork now and mix everything together. As the spinach are still nice and warm, there is 
a beautiful flavor coming up from the nutmeg, but also, it’s reacting very well with the 
garlic. Continue mixing until you get this beautiful and smooth paste, just like this. 
And always very important when you’re cooking, especially when you’re doing something like 
this, is to taste it to make sure that you’re satisfied with the salt, pepper, and flavor. 
So let’s have a look… hmm, that’s really perfect. Be careful with salt because if 
you’re using pecorino or Parmesan cheese, they are very salty as far as cheese goes. 
So you can always add salt later, of course. And I’m ready to make my roll next. To make 
this a little bit easier on me, I’m going to be using some baking paper. I mentioned puff 
pastry; this is a roll which weighs 320 grams, and they come pre-made, which is incredibly easy 
to do, of course. So I’ll roll it, turn it around, and I will remove this paper. And very simply, 
I’ll start adding my spinach mixture on top of my puff pastry, and I’m leaving a little gap from 
the edges so that when I roll it, it will not spill everywhere. And I’ll go ahead and position 
my eggs inside next, and I’ll put them this way here. I’ll place this one the other way. And very 
slowly and carefully, I’ll start rolling my puff pastry. If it tries to escape, just bring it back 
with the spoon and carry on. Likewise, at the end, I can see that it’s going to be a problem, so 
I’m going to bring some in. And I’ll carry on. Puff pastry is quite stretchy, so feel free to 
just go the other way and don’t worry too much if there is a little hole; that’s fine. I think 
I was a little bit too greedy with the fillings, and I’m now paying the price, but I’m using a 
little teaspoon to push the spinach on the inside. This side is not too bad; that’s pretty much 
there. And here, where I’ve got a little hole, there is no drama. I’ll just patch it up. So, 
I’m totally fine now, just going to roll the other way. I’m losing my fingers! I’ll go 
along and close this as best as I can, and I’m not doing the same on the other side. There 
is a little bit of a spillage, but that is good enough to me. I am sure that you will agree. It is 
nearly ready to go in there. I will buy a couple more things before I put it in. Fork, and I will 
pierce a few holes on the top, just like this. This will ensure that the 
roll will breathe as it cooks, but also it will look much 
better once it is cooked. New egg. I will remove the white from 
the yolk. Then I will break the yolk, and I am not placing the egg on 
top of my roll to ensure that it is at room temperature. You will find 
that this will be considerably easier. Using the hard-boiled eggs was variant #2 
from the classic recipe, because the torta, or the cake—generally people put the eggs 
uncooked on top of the spinach and ricotta. They dig a little hole with the spoon, and 
then it cooks in the oven. So I am slightly migrating because I am doing it in a roll, and I 
could not put obviously uncooked eggs in there. But I am now also applying variant #3, and this: 
sunflower seeds, which I am sticking on top of my egg. They will give the roll a beautiful finish, 
a bit like bread. You do not have to add any, of course, but if you have got some 
sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds, or any seeds in your cupboard, just 
put them in. They definitely look good. And before we go—yeah—and as 
I have got too much paper now, I will just remove this excess baking paper. I have got a little roasting tray ready, 
and I will just link in the lift and position it in the middle. And it is 
ready to go in. Temperature: 180° in a fan-assisted oven. If you have got a normal 
conventional oven, up the temperature to 190, and I will put it in for 30 minutes—anything 
between 30 to 35 minutes—until the puff pastry is cooked. And you will know that because it 
will puff, and it will look beautiful and brown. So, I have seen about 35 to 40 minutes. 
And—30 minutes on exactly—and it is ready. And I have to say, it looks superb. It 
has actually opened up a little here. I think it looks even better. Anyway, it is piping hot, so I am going to 
leave it for about 10 to 15 minutes before I slice. It was all over the place. 
I will see you in a little while. You know that time of the day when, from 
daylight, the day transitions into darkness? And I think the word is dusk? Dusk, yes. And 
vampires—they start waking up in their bed, and they are not quite fully alerted yet, 
and they are beginning to get alerted. Yeah. That is the same when the smell of 
what I cook is around the house, and Julie emerges. She pops her little 
head around the corner, and she says to me, “Do you need any help with… me, at the end of 
the video?” And there she is—she has arrived. “It smells absolutely lovely, everybody, and I am really hungry. It is a bit late 
actually for me, so I am really hungry.” “It is really late.” She is 
just like clockwork, honestly. I am going to slice a piece. It 
actually has been resting for a good 15 minutes. If you leave it longer, it will 
be considerably easier to slice it. But also, once it has cooled down, you can put it in 
the fridge, and then this will last in the fridge three or four days—easy—because 
you know there is no meat in there, and all of the ingredients are very 
much easy to keep in the fridge. But I will just turn it around, and I am 
going to—for you—and hopefully, if I go… May I point out, everybody, I do not 
think this will last three or four days. Now—but I am trying to get across the egg so 
that we get a good view of what it looks like on the inside. Bread knife to do this, of 
course, and I am going to gently open it… Oh, look at that—bang on in the middle. “Ohh wow.” “Ohh yeah yeah.” It is still steaming a 
little, but that is fine. We are going… Delicious. …to eat in a little while. I have just 
finished doing my picture, and I am going to show you how easy it is to also slice it, so 
that you can take a slice for lunch if you want, into your office, and make 
everybody jealous. See? Wonderful. Like you mean with the hard-boiled egg? Awesome. People are not too happy with hard-boiled 
eggs on trains or in the office… Whatever. Not be happy. But 
do you care? I would not. Really good. “Dead Easy”, “Dead Quick, “Deliziosa”. Arrivederci. Buon appetito. 
Make it—you will absolutely love it. Ciao ciao. See you later.