This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
My baked chicken cannelloni is made with cannelloni pasta tubes stuffed with a cheesy ricotta, chicken, and spinach filling, topped with creamy sauce. This is an easy make-ahead dinner that’s family-friendly, customizable, and so tasty!
Cheesy Baked Cannelloni With Chicken
Like my homemade stromboli, baked mostaccioli, and crockpot lasagna, this cheesy chicken-stuffed cannelloni is a classic Italian dish made EASY. Chicken cannelloni is quick and stuffed with a filling of fresh spinach, chicken, and ricotta, all nestled in pasta sauce and topped with a creamy mixture of half-and-half, Parmesan, and Italian seasonings. A side of air fryer garlic bread is perfect for sopping up all that sauce!
The entire recipe takes 45 minutes from start to finish. It’s kid-friendly and makes for some great leftovers.
Reader Review
“This is a delicious recipe!! One of your longer recipes, but absolutely worth a little more effort! I love that all of your recipes allow for changes of supplies on hand, adding veggies, spices, and different proteins!! Thank you 😊” – Lynn Marie
Ingredients You’ll Need
This chicken cannelloni recipe is flexible. I love reading comments where you guys have swapped out the pasta, changed up the ingredients, and adapted it for your families with delicious success!
Here’s what I use. Scroll to the recipe card for the printable details and amounts.
- Cannelloni: These are large pasta tubes made for stuffing and baking. Manicotti shells are a close substitute.
- Olive Oil: Or any other cooking oil.
- Garlic and Onion: Diced yellow onion and minced fresh garlic.
- Chicken: I use shredded chicken for the filling, or about 3 cooked chicken breasts. You can bake the chicken, use the air fryer, or chop up leftover rotisserie chicken. Alternatively, replace the chopped chicken with ¾ to 1 pound of cooked ground chicken.
- Milk: Any kind (whole milk, 2%, etc.).
- Ricotta Cheese: I use part-skim ricotta, a soft Italian cheese you’ll find in the dairy aisle or deli section of most grocery stores.
- Baby Spinach: Fresh or frozen. If you’re using frozen spinach, thaw it and squeeze out any excess moisture to avoid a watery filling.
- Pasta Sauce: Use your favorite pasta sauce, homemade or store-bought.
- Half-and-half: Heavy cream works for an extra-rich cream sauce.
- Parmesan Cheese: I like freshly grated for the best flavor, but pre-grated parmesan is fine.
- Seasonings: I season the creamy sauce with dried basil, oregano, ground nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Substitute the individual herbs with Italian seasoning if needed.
Cannelloni Alternatives
If you can’t find cannelloni tubes, the ricotta and spinach filling is also delicious in stuffed shells or lasagna sheets, but the baking times can vary.
- Jumbo shells. Simply swap cannelloni tubes with jumbo pasta shells and prepare the recipe as directed.
- Lasagna sheets. Another option is to roll the chicken filling inside fresh or pre-boiled lasagna sheets, like lasagna roll-ups. Nestle the roll-ups on top of the red sauce, pour over the white sauce, and bake!
Should I Pre-Cook the Cannelloni Tubes?
It may be the pasta brand I used, but I never par-cooked my cannelloni for this recipe until I switched brands. Some commenters said their tubes needed to be precooked because they remained crunchy after baking. To avoid this, I suggest precooking the cannelloni tubes in boiling water for 5 minutes before filling them with the chicken mixture.
Pin this now to find it later
Pin It
Chicken Cannelloni
Ingredients
- 12 cannelloni tubes
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 cooked chicken breasts, finely chopped
- ½ cup milk
- 1 cup part-skim Ricotta cheese
- 8 to 10 ounces baby spinach
- salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 cup pasta sauce
- 1½ cups half-and-half
- ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- ½ teaspoon dried basil
- ¼ teaspoon dried oregano
- ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Par-cook the cannelloni. Cook the cannelloni tubes in boiling water for 5 minutes; rinse and set aside to cool for a few minutes, or just until cool enough to handle.
- Prepare to bake. Preheat the oven to 400ºF.
- Sauté. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and sauté for 2 minutes; stir in the garlic and chicken, and continue cooking for 4 minutes.
- Make it creamy. Add the milk and let it simmer for 2 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated. Stir in the ricotta cheese until well blended.
- Add the spinach. Add the spinach and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, or until wilted. Remove from heat and let stand a few minutes, or until cool enough to handle.
- Stuff the cannelloni. Spoon pasta sauce on the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish and set aside. Using a spoon, your hands, or a piping bag, stuff the prepared chicken mixture into cannelloni tubes.
- Assemble. Arrange the cannelloni in a single layer on the bottom of the baking dish, over the pasta sauce. Set aside.
- Make the sauce. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the half-and-half, parmesan, basil, oregano, nutmeg, salt, and pepper until thoroughly combined. Pour the half-and-half mixture over the cannelloni.
- Bake. Transfer the baking dish to the oven and bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the cream is reduced. Remove from the oven and let stand for 3 to 5 minutes, or until the sauce thickens slightly. Spoon the sauce over the cannelloni and serve.
- Finish and serve. Remove from the oven and let it rest for 3 to 5 minutes, or until the sauce thickens slightly. Spoon the sauce over the cannelloni and serve.
Video
Nutrition
Nutritional info is an estimate and provided as courtesy. Values may vary according to the ingredients and tools used. Please use your preferred nutritional calculator for more detailed info.
How to Make Chicken Cannelloni
Stuffed cannelloni are delicious bundles of dinner-joy. Stuffing the pasta tubes takes time, but it’s so easy that you can even prepare this the day before. It’ll be ready for the oven during the week.
- Par-boil the pasta. Cook the cannelloni tubes in salted, boiling water for 5 minutes. Then, rinse the pasta and let it cool enough to handle.
- Make the filling. Meanwhile, sauté the onions in oil, then add the garlic and cooked chicken. After a few minutes, stir in the milk, let that simmer, and add the ricotta and spinach. Cook until the spinach has wilted, then let the filling cool and thicken.
- Assemble. Spread the pasta sauce into the bottom of a casserole dish. Stuff the cannelloni with the cheesy chicken mixture. You can do this by hand, with a spoon, or by piping (my preferred method).
- Add the white sauce. Nestle the stuffed cannelloni in a single layer over the pasta sauce. Whisk the half-and-half with parmesan, herbs, and seasonings, and pour it over the cannelloni.
- Bake. Bake at 400ºF for 18-20 minutes, until golden and bubbly. Give the cannelloni a few minutes to cool and rest so the sauce can thicken before serving.
Use a Piping Bag to Fill the Cannelloni
I’ve found this is the easiest way to fill cannelloni tubes. Add the chicken mixture to a ziplock bag (or piping bag), snip off the tip, and place the tip inside the open end of the cannelloni. Pipe the filling into the tubes. Works like a charm!
Can I Freeze Cannelloni?
This is a freezer-friendly meal, usually when it’s cooked in a tomato-based sauce. Because this recipe has a cream-based sauce, I usually avoid freezing it, as the sauce can change texture when reheated.
However, if you still want to freeze it, let it cool, wrap it tightly, and freeze it unbaked. Thaw the casserole in the fridge overnight. Before baking, add a splash of liquid, like milk, and bake as directed.
I think I will make a few modifications to this recipe next time I make it. I think it would be better if an actual cream sauce were made in the skillet with whole milk, garlic, all of the same spices as this recipe, and more parmesan. I’d let it get nice and thick and let the parmesan melt. The quick mixing of the half and half and putting it in the oven like that just made it all seem kinda dry overall. I’ll probably put some of it inside the cannelloni, too, because the filling ended up being kinda dry as well.
Made this last night. Did not have cannelloni noodles but had manicotti noodles. It was great. My husband loved it and we got our parsley from our garden.
Will make again!
L
Excellent recipe. One of the best I’ve made. I made two casseroles and froze one.
This recipe has a lot of potential. I followed it except for I used whole milk ricotta and I used a rotisserie chicken. There was way too much half an half. I believe it needs mozzarella cheese added to the chicken mixture. Cheese makes everything better! So ppl add your own spin to it. Play with it.
I agree with previous reviewer that the chicken, milk, ricotta mixture was liquid. The recipe needs a lot of help. It’s very bland and just not good. I will never make this again. I was able to salvage it with using extra ricotta and discarding the watery mix. Starting over w ricotta and wasting cheese which I hate. I also had to make a completely different sauce for the mixture form another recipe I love just to give it flavor. Do not use this recipe.
I made this pretty much following the recipe except I added b
Chopped mushrooms and more onions to the chicken plus a dash or two of cayenne pepper. Must have worked as the plates were all but licked clean. I will definitely be using this recipe again! I also made my own tomato sauce, which I admit, is pretty darned good 😊. Thank you for sharing!!
That’s great to hear! I’m very glad you and your family enjoyed it! Thank YOU! 🙂
I wish I had read more of the reviews before making this because it was undoubtedly one of the worst things I’ve ever made (and I am no stranger to the kitchen). There is a lot of potential, but the method is disastrous. I used manicotti because I couldn’t find cannelloni and cooked it for 8 minutes (1 minute more than what was on the Barilla box) and it was still undercooked and chewy in spots. So blame that one on Barilla, it really needs more like 10 minutes. Then, both the milk and the ricotta cheese curdled when added to the pan and heated and the filling was watery (it definitely did not end up like the photo). I used 2% milk and as called for, part-skim ricotta. If you’re going to make it and insist on making it as written, I’d recommend using full-fat dairy to at least try and prevent curdling and maybe that would also cut down on some of the wateriness. I’m also not sure I understand the point of adding milk and simmering it until it’s evaporated so would definitely skip that step. Chopped chicken was a nightmare to try and wrestle into the shells so if I were to try this again, I’d use shredded chicken instead. As far as the filling goes, it makes more sense to cook the onions, garlic, and spinach, and then let it cool for a few minutes before mixing with the ricotta and shredded chicken. It holds together better and I think would prevent some of the wateriness. And finally, I used fat free half and half and that was too thin, though I’ve never had a problem making that substitution with other recipes. The ratio of pasta sauce to half and half mixture seemed off as well. Next time, I’d use full fat half and half, or heavy cream, but less of it, along with the parmesan and spices, and mix them together with the pasta sauce, then pour over the pasta before baking. It took far longer than 20 minutes at 400 degrees (I don’t know what kind of oven can heat and reduce 1.5 cups of, presumably cold or at least cool, half and half in 20 minutes. Beyond that, it sounds like the recipe originally intended for the pasta to be cooked in that cream mixture in 20 minutes. There’s no way). Probably should go more like 45-55 minutes, at least. Overall it was bland, watery, and far more complicated than it needed to be and while I recognize that my use of low fat dairy products could have contributed to that, the only specification on fat percentage to use was the part-skim ricotta. We choked it down for dinner and I threw out the rest. I may try again with a different method and manicotti that’s more cooked or even stuffed shells.
Made just as written and my family loved it. Amazing receipe,
That’s great! I’m very glad you and your family enjoyed it! Thank YOU! 🙂
Have you tried to make using ground chicken instead of chicken breast? Thanks!
No, I have not made these with ground chicken.
This recipe sounded great. My Mom can’t eat tomato products, so I was wondering if Alfredo sauce might be a good substitute for the marinara. Thoughts?