Cannelloni (; Italian for "large reeds") are a cylindrical type of lasagna generally served

baked Baking is a method of preparing food that uses dry heat, typically in an oven, but can also be done in hot ashes, or on hot stones. The most common baked item is bread but many other types of foods can be baked. Heat is gradually transferre ...

with a

filling Filling may refer to: * a food mixture used for stuffing * Icing (food), Frosting used between layers of a cake * Dental restoration * Symplectic filling, a kind of cobordism in mathematics * Part of the leather crusting process See also

* Fi ...

and covered by a sauce in Italian cuisine. Popular stuffings include

spinach Spinach (''Spinacia oleracea'') is a leafy green flowering plant native to central and western Asia. It is of the order Caryophyllales, family Amaranthaceae, subfamily Chenopodioideae. Its leaves are a common edible vegetable consumed either f ...

and ricotta or minced beef. The shells are then typically covered with tomato sauce. Cannelloni are also a typical dish of the

Catalan cuisine Catalan cuisine is the cuisine from Catalonia. It may also refer to the shared cuisine of Northern Catalonia and Andorra, the second of which has a similar cuisine to that of the neighbouring Alt Urgell and Cerdanya ''comarques'' and which i ...

, where they are called ''canelons'' and traditionally consumed on Saint Stephen's Day. Early references to ''macheroni ripieni'' (

stuffed pasta Filled pasta or stuffed pasta refers to a dumpling with a flour, especially pasta, wrapper or skin, usually sealed, surrounding a variety of fillings. Such pasta is especially common in non-tropical regions of Eurasia. Examples of filled past ...

) can be traced back to 1770, but the word cannelloni seems to have appeared at the turn of the 20th century. Manicotti are the American version of cannelloni, though the term may often refer to the actual baked dish. The original difference may be that cannelloni consists of pasta sheets wrapped around the filling, and manicotti is machine- extruded cylinders filled from one end.

References

{{Pasta Types of pasta Stuffed dishes