In my quest to clean up the freezer, I made these leftover Amazon cheese ravioli yesterday. They were $4.10 for the 24 oz package when we last bought them, but they’re currently unavailable.
The ravioli are filled with a mixture of ricotta, bread crumbs, Romano cheese and water, seasoned with salt, calcium carbonate, corn starch, parsley and black pepper – a pretty standard filling for cheese ravioli. It’s not particularly flavorful, however. The pasta is a little on the thick side.
In all, the ravioli are just OK – but that can be said of most frozen cheese ravioli. They are cheaper than most and they serve as a vehicle for whatever sauce you put on it.
These Smoked Beef Brisket Ravioli are filled with smoked beef brisket in a very tasty BBQ sauce. They are quite similar to the pulled pork ravioli I reviewed previously, but the flavor is milder and therefore better suited to the medium. I served them with butter & sage (I melted some butter in a skillet, added sage leaves and then added the boiled ravioli) and that worked well. I don’t think the ravioli would work with a tomato or cheese based sauce, though perhaps they would go with a cream (maybe and mustard?) one. Plain butter works as well.
The 8 oz package has 1 1/2 portions, which makes it a very awkward size, unless you’re feeding yourself and a child. These ravioli are 2-bite sized, but if feeding a young child you could pre-cut them for them or serve them as finger food, though the filling is prone to spilling out.
I probably will buy these again when they go on sale for $5 (normally $8 at Safeway).
I love ravioli. It’s been my favorite pasta since I was a kid. Indeed, it was the only pasta I liked as a kid. This love comes from the fact that my grandparents used to make homemade ravioli, and they celebrated my first birthday with a raviolada, I love seeing the photos of my with a face full of sauce.
Short of having my grandmother make ravioli, I only had ravioli growing up when my father would buy the fresh pasta at a nearby pasta factory. But it was expensive. My parents were thrifty, so it was a special occurrence.
In the US (and in Argentina nowadays), you could get frozen ravioli for a reasonable price, so they were one of the first dishes I started “making” after I got married. I still always keep a bag of frozen ravioli in the fridge just in case.
With time, supermarkets started selling higher quality refrigerated ravioli, and recently Rana has moved into selling these “gourmet”-style ravioli, with unusual/special fillings. They were on sale this week ($5 for the 8 oz package, down from $8 regular price), so I grabbed a couple of bags.
I hadn’t had the pulled pork ravioli before and I was sort of puzzled by them – I still am. The pulled pork filling is very tasty, it has a strong, but balanced, BBQ pork flavor and stands well to the pasta. The flavor of fillings in ravioli often gets lost, but that is not the case here. Still, it was not clear to me why I was eating pulled pork inside a ravioli. The flavor/texture combination wasn’t really obvious and I’m still not sure that it worked. Again, it was tasty but it was weird.
I usually eat commercial ravioli with store-bought pasta sauce, but I didn’t think the flavor combinations would work here, so I tried these ravioli with butter – that worked well enough. I think brown butter and sage would work as well, though I was too lazy to make it last night. I did try it with some grated pecorino cheese, but the cheese does nothing here but confuse flavors – it’s definitely best left out. You do need butter or sauce as otherwise the ravioli get too sticky/gummy.
The other issue I have with these ravioli is the package size. The 8 oz package is supposed to offer two servings of one cup each. But unless you are serving them as an appetizer or along other dishes, or simply are not very hungry, a cup of ravioli is too little. Two cups, however, is too much unless you are actually very hungry. Now, the package might be perfect if you are making dinner for yourself and a young child, but that’s no longer my case. I wish they would increase the size to 12 oz, or perhaps decrease it to 6 oz. That said, $5 for a gourmet tasting meal is definitely not a bad price.
The ravioli themselves are pretty large – the kind you need to cut in two in order to fit into your mind. Obviously you can do this with a fork, but I personally prefer smaller ravioli.
I might buy these again to feed to my husband, who just loves pulled pork. But really, I wish Rana would just sell their pulled pork to eat in a sandwich, that feels more natural.
Frozen ravioli have long been a savior for busy moms – and just regular people. They are easy (though a bit bulky) to keep in the freezer, quick enough to make, and, combined with store-bought sauce, a super easy weeknight meal. I’m going through yet another cooking strike, so frozen ravioli have reappeared in our lives.
I’ve been buying Celentano frozen ravioli quite a bit lately because they are often on sale at Safeway ($4-5 for 20-24 oz, from a $8 purported regular price), and at that price they are cheaper than Safeway’s own brand. Safeway only carries the cheese, spinach & cheese and beef ravioli, so they are they only ones we tried.
They are pretty good, not dramatically different in taste than other brands. My daughters don’t like the spinach & cheese flavor, but they are happy enough with the cheese ones. These come in both regular and “mini” version, the latter are easier to eat. The regular sized ravioli are too large to eat with one bite, so you need to cut them in two, though you can accomplish this with a fork if you cook them past al dente (which I do). Like other raviolis, if you do this they tend to open in the boiling water and the filling comes out.
The beef ravioli have a subtle flavor, as is often the case in ravioli, but not really different than Safeway’s own brand. There is enough flavor to eat them with butter and cheese instead of sauce.
In all, if you are watching your pennies, there is no particular reason to not buy this brand versus other regular frozen ravioli brands – obviously they are not as good at Genova ravioli, my favorite brand, but they are about 1/3 the price.
Ravioli has been one of my favorite foods since I was a little kid. My Italian-Argentinian grandparents would make them by hand, and my first birthday was celebrated with a huge raviolada. I kept the same tradition when I celebrated my daughter’s first birthday, over 18 years ago, though in that occasion, as well any subsequent ones, I bought the ravioli already made, from the supermarket.
Genova Delicatessen Ravioli are, by far, my favorite ravioli in America. They have the softest, most supple pasta shells of any – fresh or frozen – that I have eaten. Indeed, as far as texture goes, I don’t think I’ve had any served at restaurants that surpass them.
The fillings are OK. Good without being too special. They are mildly seasoned, so they don’t stand to very flavorful sauces. In this occasion I paired them with a truffle pasta sauce from Safeway, and it was too much for it. Butter and Parmesan cheese are sufficient.
The ravioli come frozen and require that you separate them before boiling. They are rather small, so it’s a quick 5-minute boil. They do cost about twice as much as Safeway-brand ravioli, but they are a whole level above them.
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