Minced beef cannelloni: homemade recipe with béchamel

Minced beef cannelloni come together in three stages: a beef mince filling browned with onion, carrot and tomato, pasta tubes filled with a piping bag or a spoon, then 35 to 40 minutes in the oven at 180 °C, between a layer of tomato sauce and a béchamel. The golden rule: the pasta must be completely covered with sauce, or it stays hard.

Here is the homemade recipe for 4 people, how to choose and mince the meat, the technique for filling the tubes without breaking them and the mistakes that lead to dry cannelloni. The dish can be made ahead and freezes very well. For a fine filling that slips easily into the tubes, mince the meat with the fine plate of one of our meat grinders.

The minced beef cannelloni recipe

Here is the minced beef cannelloni recipe for four people. First you will find the ingredients, béchamel included, then the detailed steps, from the filling to the oven.

Ingredients for 4 people

• 16 dried cannelloni tubes, the "no pre-cook" kind
• 400 g beef mince with 15% fat
• 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 garlic clove
• 600 g passata or chopped tomatoes
• 1 egg and 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley or basil
• For the béchamel: 40 g butter, 40 g flour, 60 cl milk, salt, pepper, nutmeg
• 80 g grated cheese
• Olive oil, salt, pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Finely chop the onion, carrot and garlic, then fry them gently for 5 minutes in a drizzle of oil.
2. Add the meat, break it up and cook until it is no longer red. Pour in 200 g of the tomato, season with salt and pepper and simmer for 10 minutes over a low heat: the filling should be thick.
3. Take it off the heat, let it cool slightly, then stir in the egg and herbs.
4. Make the béchamel: melt the butter, add the flour, stir for 1 minute, then pour in the cold milk, whisking until it thickens. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.
5. Spread half the remaining tomato over the base of a dish. Fill the cannelloni and lay them side by side.
6. Cover with the rest of the tomato, then with the béchamel, leaving no pasta exposed. Sprinkle with grated cheese.
7. Bake for 20 minutes under a sheet of aluminium foil, then 15 to 20 minutes uncovered to brown the top.

The cannelloni are done when the tip of a knife slides through a tube with no resistance. The filling works like a slow-cooked meat sauce, reduced so it does not run: for a longer, more melting version, start from our homemade bolognese.

The filling: which meat and which mince to choose

The filling needs to stay moist after 40 minutes in the oven, while being fine enough to slide into a tube 2 cm across.

Mincing a piece of chuck or blade yourself, just before you cook, gives a filling that releases less water and keeps its flavour. To choose an appliance supplied with these plates, see our electric meat grinder collection.

Filling cannelloni without breaking them

Filling the tubes without splitting them takes a little method. Here are two ways to fill cannelloni, followed by the points to watch on the filling, the pasta and how you arrange them in the dish.

• The piping bag: the quickest method. A wide nozzle or a freezer bag with one corner snipped off is all you need. Hold the tube upright and fill it right to both ends.
• The teaspoon: slower, but suited to a medium-textured filling. Push the filling down with the handle.
• A lukewarm filling: cold, it turns compact and hard to push; hot, it sets the egg too early.
• No pre-cooking: dried tubes fill without splitting, whereas pre-cooked pasta tears under pressure.

Pack the tubes tightly against each other, in a single layer: they hold one another in place and cook evenly. For a piped filling, a fine texture matters: if you would rather mince without electricity, a model from the manual meat grinder collection gives the same texture for a family-sized dish.

The mistakes that make cannelloni hard or dry

Two mistakes account for almost every failed batch of cannelloni:

• Pasta not fully covered with sauce: a dried cannelloni tube cooks in the liquid around it. An end sticking out of the béchamel stays leathery and browns. Make enough sauce to cover everything, even if it means thinning the béchamel with 10 cl of milk.
• A filling that is too wet or too dry: too wet, it escapes from the tubes and makes the dish soggy. Too dry, it turns into a hard ball in the middle.

Reducing for 10 minutes with a little tomato, then binding with egg, solves both problems. The same balance applies to our minced beef lasagne, also layered between tomato and béchamel.

Can you make cannelloni the day before?

Yes, and it is handy for a family meal. Assemble the dish, cover it and keep it in the fridge until the next day. Then add 10 minutes to the cooking time, as the dish goes in cold, and check that the sauce still covers the pasta well.

Can you freeze minced beef cannelloni?

Yes, cooked or uncooked, in an airtight dish, for about 3 months. Thaw them in the fridge the day before, then reheat them for 25 minutes at 170 °C under aluminium foil. Remove the foil for the last few minutes to get a nicely browned top.