What Sauce to Serve With Spinach Ravioli?  13 Ideas

When talking about Italian cuisine, pasta is one of the first things crossing your mind. From spaghetti to penne or ravioli, everyone has their favorite type of pasta. Today, we will talk about ravioli. Artisanal or industrial, everyone loves to include them in their everyday life. Although, it can be challenging to find a unique new way to serve them. So, what sauce to serve spinach ravioli? 

Some sauce ideas to serve with spinach ravioli are cheeses like gorgonzola or Boursin, vegetable sauces like mushrooms, avocado, or caramelized onions. In addition, you can cook more unusual sauces with pumpkin or walnuts, more classic ones like tomato sauce, or just a simple lemon and butter sauce. 

I have created a list of all types of diets in this article, starting with vegetarian, vegan, and lactose-free. In addition, I included some excellent ideas for spicy, easy, complicated, or unusual recipes. I am curious to know which 13 ideas will speak to you most and make you curious to try right away. 

What Sauce Goes Well With Spinach Ravioli?

Lemon Herb Butter Sauce

Do you know how you can make easy recipes feel extra? This sauce is the case where simple ingredients make the magic happen, and in the end, you will have a mix of smells and tastes. So choose your herbs carefully, be creative and dare to mix them randomly. 

You will be amazed how some combinations will offer a completely different experience. You can also use a handful of spinach here if you love that taste. And a little secret: always add the shallots before, and when they are almost a gold color, add the garlic. 

Gorgonzola Sauce

There is a wide variety of sauces with gorgonzola as you can fit it with a lot of products like broccoli, bacon, peas, or chicken. However, the nutty and sweet aroma of gorgonzola will dominate the plate on any occasion, and all other ingredients will be secondary tastes to complete the dish. 

I must say that gorgonzola is not my favorite product, but you cannot ignore the popularity of this cheese, so who knows, maybe its taste speaks to you. 

Boursin Sauce

Are you a little tired of gorgonzola sauce, maybe? Well, try this fantastic french cheese called Boursin cheese. This variety of cheese has a strong taste of garlic and fine herbs and is pretty soft and creamy. 

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Although it’s cream, it needs to be melted and mixed with another juicy product, so to stay inside this french vibe, you can mix it with fresh cream instead of heavy cream. 

This combination itself has a lot of flavors, so all you need to add is some more garlic, salt, and pepper. Of course the last touch will be parmigiano reggiano or grana padano. 

Chicken and Mushrooms Sauce

While consuming spinach ravioli, you already have many carbs and fibers. However, it would be best if you had some protein to create a complete meal packed with macronutrients. The best protein consumed with spinach ravioli is chicken and mushrooms. 

Those ingredients are good because they can fit with heavy and fresh cream or tomato sauce. For sure, tomato sauce is more healthy, but for sure, I would go for the cream version. The result will be divine if you fry the mushrooms with butter and some garlic. 

If you want to stay in a vegetarian dish, avoid the chicken and add a salad with chickpeas or lentils instead. 

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Walnut Sauce 

When I visited Genoa for the first day, I immediately tried Pesto Genovese, the iconic food from this city. However, while tasting this sauce so many times in different restaurants, I decided to give other sauces a chance and tried some excellent vegetarian ravioli with walnut sauce. 

I underestimated this plate, which was a total surprise in all senses. However, I think you have to try it at least once, and if you are not in Genoa to enjoy it, then cook it for yourself. It will make you eat double the ravioli portion you initially planned. 

What Light Sauces Go With Spinach Ravioli?

Tomato sauce 

I don’t think any pasta lover on this planet has not cooked or tasted them once with just a tomato sauce. The lightest sauce contains only tomatoes and basil, fresh herbs, garlic, and a little olive oil. 

Consider tomato sauce if your ravioli is filled only with spinach and not with a green sauce like pesto. 

A little secret I would like to share is that in the summer, when tomatoes are in their peak season, they don’t even need to be cooked. Instead, choose some soft tomatoes full of juice, chop them with a knife instead of in a blender, mix again with olive oil, garlic, and some basil, and put it in the spinach ravioli. 

For sure, this will be the lightest sauce you can find. 

Chickpea, Basil, and Beacon

More than a sauce, combine the spinach ravioli with more ingredients. For this recipe, consider no more than six slices of bacon, bake them until they turn crispy, and then mix with some boiled chickpeas, basil, and sun-dried tomatoes—no need to cook or fry the ingredients together. 

Another option can be with ricotta and broccoli. Firstly boil the broccoli until it gets soft, and then start frying the ricotta for some second until it becomes smooth; add broccoli, some lemon, and salt.

Both ideas may look heavy due to meat and ricotta present but are lighter than you think. Both prosciutto and ricotta will be in small quantities, enough to provide some protein, and all other vegetables are easily digested. 

There is no cream or saturated fat in both cases, but only raw or boiled ingredients. If you want to go for a simple meal, then go for any of both suggestions, or maybe for both 😛 

Healthy Sauce Ideas for Spinach Ravioli

Basil and Walnut Pesto

Usually, I love to have some spinach in my pesto, but only in this case would I propose a basil pesto for an extra flavor and not make it too much Spinach. Only six essential ingredients and an electronic blender are all you need to prepare it, and the result will be ready in less than 10 minutes.

Follow the same steps as regular pesto, only this time you will use walnuts instead of pine nuts. You can serve it cold, as when mixed with hot ravioli, immediately it will get warmer and is ready to be served. 

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Avocado Sauce

Avocado and Spinach may go well together in a smoothie, but they may also combine even more excellent in a ravioli. For all vegans, an avocado dressing will be your favorite not only for ravioli but for a lot more purposes like dips for raw vegetables, chips, or salads.  

Mix a soft avocado with virgin olive oil, fresh basil, and some lemon or a little white wine, and you have a nice avocado sauce to use. 

With this recipe, you will profit from amazing avocados nutrition benefits like vitamin C, B, and K and take a good amount of good fat. This recipe also does not need time and can be prepared in an electronic blender. [1]

Avocado, parsley, and chives will create a fantastic green sauce that is a little bitter due to lemon and soft, smooth and fresh due to the three vegetables.

Lemon Herb Tahini Sauce

Not very popular, but I would never say no to a tahini sauce. The idea for a tahini sauce may look like it goes better with salads, but who says that you cannot consume it with ravioli? Furthermore, the unique taste of tahini makes it favorable to be mixed with all kinds of vegetables. 

The taste of roaster sesame, lemon juice, and fresh and dried herbs will be slightly sweet but acidic. While ravioli with Spinach has a soft and salty flavor, a mixture of everything together can be complex. 

What Sauce to Serve With Spinach And Cheese Ravioli?

Caramelized Onion Sauce

This can seem very unusual and maybe unheard, but I like the idea of a sauce made with caramelized onion to accompany the spinach ravioli. This sauce will be a combination of sweet and salty with a bit of bitterness. 

Fry the onions in low heat with some good quality olive oil until they are turned into gold. When you feel they are well cooked, add some sweet wine. 

The bitterness comes from the onions and the dry red wine that you will use. With this easy recipe, you will pull the flavor out of the onion and create a unique taste out of only one vegetable. 

To keep the taste unchanged, I suggest serving the spinach and cheese ravioli in the exact wine used for the caramelized onions. 

Squash Sauce

A perfect idea for autumn can be a hot squash sauce. Let me emphasize that this recipe will be full of lactose and fat, but if you don’t have any problems with any of those, then give it a try. This type of sauce, due to the taste of squash, will be sweet and mild, but mascarpone will provide it with the best creamy texture and a more sweet flavor. 

All you need is some squash blended into a puree, shallots, a little bit of celery, and together with mascarpone, some fresh cream. Boil them for some minutes, then fix them with spices according to your taste, and the sauce is ready.

All curry lovers know what a fantastic duo squash and curry can be. I would dare try a curry sauce with squash, even in this case. Give that squash a good amount of spiciness. You can be generous with the amount of the curry if you love its taste. 

Truffle Sauce

I have not met any truffle lover who can get enough of some ravioli with truffle sauce. There are a lot of ideas on how to cook it, but you can start with a simple way of preparing it. Where to start? 

Of course, this recipe needs truffle, garlic and shallots, and my favorite parsley.  After frying everything in butter for some minutes, add some heavy cream and serve it hot. 

I am very generous when I put the parsley; you can do the same if you love it. In 15 minutes, this delicious sauce will be ready to serve and warm your heart. 

What Store-bought Sauce Is Served With Spinach Ravioli?

When buying stored sauces, there is a risk that you will not fulfill your expectations, and the taste is not as good as your expectations. So, first of all, I would choose a good brand of sauces. A good one can be the Barilla brand. A well-established Italian company known worldwide. 

They sell a wide variety of red sauces like arrabbiata, bolognese, pesto Genovese, or siciliano. Their sauces are designed to fit all kinds of pasta, are very delicious, and can be consumed cold, uncooked, cooked, and mixed with other ingredients. 

If you, for some reason, don’t like this specific brand or face difficulties finding a barilla, then try to find some organic brands. The probability that an organic brand offers a better taste is higher. 

How to Serve Spinach Ravioli Without Sauce?

There are plenty of things you can serve with ravioli and sauce is surely one of the best things, but here I want to share some other ideas.

Just with Cheese

You can serve the ravioli just with a cheese that you love. It is not a secret that the king of cheeses to put in the pasta is Parmigiano Reggiano, but you can use any type you want. Another way to serve it is with green yogurt mixed with fresh herbs. In both cases, you can put small quantities according to your preferences. 

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Meat

Another way to serve it is with a beefsteak on the side. Roast the steak the way you prefer: from raw to well-cooked, and serve it with some wine or black pepper sauce. Also, chicken can work on the same idea with some garlic or peas sauce. 

Vegetables

Roast some veggies on the side with olive oil and lemon and marinate it with some aceto balsamico or mustard dressing. You can mix veggies like mushrooms, zucchini, asparagus, broccoli, or just one or two of those vegetables. 

Wine

Choose an excellent wine to add some value to your meal. I would go for a white one, but red works perfectly if chosen carefully.