My mother, who is of Sicilian ancestry, always prepares Italian food for Christmas. Seven fish dishes were served as we observed the Vigil. I cooked manicotti to go with the squid and octopus my kids didn’t enjoy because they were only interested in shrimp. Vegetarians will also be satisfied by the fluffy cheese and spinach filling and the crêpes.
| Prep Time: | 1 hr |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 3 hrs |
| Servings: | 8 |
Ingredients
- 4 eggs
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 ¼ cups milk
- ¼ cup melted butter
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, or more as needed
- 1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained, and squeezed dry
- 1 (15 ounce) container ricotta cheese
- 1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
- ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- ¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
- 3 tablespoons chopped green onion
- 1 tablespoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 2 cups prepared marinara sauce, or as needed
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, or to taste
Instructions
- Whisk 4 eggs and 1/4 teaspoon salt together in a bowl; gradually whisk flour into eggs, alternating with milk, to make a smooth batter. Whisk melted butter into batter; refrigerate at least 1 hour.
- Pour vegetable oil into a small bowl. Heat a small skillet over medium heat; brush skillet with vegetable oil using a pastry brush. Ladle in enough batter to lightly cover the bottom of the skillet, about 1/4 cup. Swirl skillet to cover bottom completely. Cook crêpe until it turns lightly golden brown on the bottom; flip and cook until other side has small brown spots. Repeat with remaining batter, brushing the skillet with oil as needed to prevent crêpes from sticking; set cooked crêpes aside between layers of waxed paper.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Lightly mix spinach, ricotta cheese, cream cheese, Parmesan cheese, parsley, green onion, onion powder, oregano, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 2 eggs in a bowl until filling is thoroughly combined.
- Spread 1 cup marinara sauce into the bottom of a 9×13-inch baking dish. Place a crêpe onto a work surface and spoon about 3 tablespoons filling, or more as needed, in a line down the center of each crêpe. Roll crêpe over filling and set into sauce in pan; repeat with remaining crêpes and filling, laying filled crêpes into pan. Spread remaining marinara sauce over filled crêpes. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.
- Bake in the preheated oven until bubbling and mozzarella cheese is melted and slightly browned, 20 to 30 minutes.
- The first crêpe never comes out right! Don’t despair and try again. You can put mozzarella cheese in the filling also; make some with spinach and some without. Add-ins are endless.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 505 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 42 g |
| Cholesterol | 203 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 4 g |
| Protein | 25 g |
| Saturated Fat | 14 g |
| Sodium | 886 mg |
| Sugars | 10 g |
| Fat | 26 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
My wife has a gluten sensitivity, so I substituted gluten-free all-purpose flour and it turned out great! Family and guests absolutely loved it.
I doubled the spinach and added garlic. It was wonderful and everyone loved it.
Delicious! I made this for Christmas Eve. And my family loved it. I did not make crepes, I used manicotti tubes instead. The only other change I made was using fresh spinach. This may be a new tradition for us.
Absolutely amazing! Definitely going in the monthly menu rotation! Thank you for such a great recipe!
We thought this was very good. I made half the recipe but used the full amount of spinach which worked out very well. Next time I will sauté’ some onions instead of using the onion powder.
Delicious!!Love it with spinach!
This recipe was not bad at all. I made it for a Christmas Eve get-together with my family, and we ate it with baby back ribs. It was not too difficult to make and my family enjoyed it. I used chopped fresh spinach, which was what I had on hand, and that was delicious, but I wasn’t sure how much of it to use from just looking at the amount of frozen spinach listed in the recipe. The crepes took the longest amount of time to prepare, even though it was pretty simple to do. I added just a tablespoon or two of sugar to my crepe batter to round out the flavors. But, the crepe batter made a lot of extra crepes! I took the extras to Christmas morning breakfast with some different jams and fresh whipped cream. Also, I didn’t have any wax paper, but had no problems with taking my crepes apart after stacking them up.