All mothers know how healthy cereals are for the body. The most common cereal based dish is pasta. Children usually love them very much, but what if feathers, spirals and shells are already fed up? We offer you an unusual dish of Italian cuisine – stuffed cannelloni!
The benefits of cannelloni with minced meat for a child
What is this mysterious word? And this is just one type of pasta. Cannelloni pasta looks like tubules with a diameter of about three centimeters and 10 cm in length. As a filling, they usually use minced meat or chicken – it depends on the recipe.
Pasta itself is rich in vitamins and minerals, which:
- increase brain activity;
- regulate the functioning of the nervous system;
- improve vision and skin;
- contribute to the health of nails and hair;
- prevent rickets.
Pasta is also good because it does not overload the digestive system of the baby, while giving maximum energy.
It is very important that meat is present in the diet of a growing child. It contains essential amino acids, thanks to which the body can “carry out construction work”. There are also many vitamins and minerals in meat that correct the functioning of all body systems.
Chicken meat is valuable due to its high protein content, beef – because it is easily and fully absorbed by the body, pork – for its nutritional value.
Cannelloni stuffed with any kind of minced meat will saturate the child’s body with all the components necessary for growth, development and energy.
Recommendations for the preparation and introduction into the diet
The most important thing here is the correct selection of ingredients.
When choosing minced meat, make sure it is fresh. Best of all is to buy fresh meat and cook the minced meat yourself. So you will be 100% sure that it is good and really meaty.
If you still decide to buy ready-made, remember: chicken – pale pink, without intersperses, uniform. Beef – red burgundy, slight whitish blotches are allowed. Pork – pink with white spots (the more of them, the more fat in minced meat).
Cannelloni is best bought in transparent packaging – so you can visually evaluate the quality of pasta. Choose cannelloni made from durum wheat. They do not digest and are much more beneficial for the body.
Signs of good pasta:
- they are cream or golden;
- they have a smooth surface;
- the cut is clean and glassy;
- there are no traces of flour in the package.
Before filling pasta, do not boil them. Firstly, it will be inconvenient to stuff them, and secondly, after stewing, they will become “unpresentable”. It is not necessary to fill them with forcemeat too much – during the cooking process they can burst. For the same reason, they need to be stuffed with a cooling filling.
You can enter cannelloni into the diet of a three-year-old child without fear, his body is already familiar with pasta and meat.
Cannelloni with minced meat – recipe
We will cook cannelloni with minced meat in the oven with Bechamel sauce. Bechamel is one of the few sauces that can be given to children without fear.
Essential Ingredients
- cannelloni – 250 g;
- ground beef – 400 g;
- tomatoes – 400 g;
- onion – 1 pc.;
- butter – 50 g;
- milk – 1 l;
- flour – 3 tbsp. l.;
- salt and pepper – to taste;
- vegetable oil.
Cooking Cannelloni Stuffing
- Finely chop the onion, passage in a pan for 2-3 minutes. in a small amount of vegetable oil.
- Put onion peeled, finely chopped tomatoes. Put out 2-3 minutes.
- Add ground beef to the pan, mix everything and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring regularly.
- Salt, pepper a little and remove from heat. Now let the filling cool.
Cooking Bechamel Sauce
- Melt the butter in a dry frying pan, add flour to it and lightly fry for two minutes.
- Pour in milk, mix, add salt, pepper and cook over low heat until the sauce in consistency looks like liquid sour cream (20-30 min.).
- Set aside the sauce to cool.
Cooking Stuffed Cannelloni
- Take cannelloni and fill them with filling. It is most convenient to do this with a teaspoon.
- In the baking dish we spread part of the Bechamel sauce, put the filled cannelloni on top.
- Pour the cannelloni with the rest of the sauce.
- We send our dish to the oven at 180 ° C for 30-35 minutes.
Our Italian dish is ready!
Did you know? By the same principle, cannelloni are cooked in a slow cooker. This is done in baking mode and takes 40-50 minutes.
How to cook cannelloni with minced meat in the oven for a child – video
This video shows in great detail and clearly the process of making cannelloni with minced chicken. The recipe uses garlic, you can put it less or do without it. There is also cheese in the recipe, which makes this dish even tastier.
Cannelloni with minced meat is a very unusual and delicious dish of Italian cuisine. Hearty, healthy, light, it will not only surprise little lovers of delicious, but will also become a full dinner for the whole family!
Prepare stuffed pasta or vermicelli casserole, milk soup with vermicelli, or pasta with vegetables for your child. In the diet of the baby pasta should be present, since the nutrition of children should be full and varied.
