Traditional German Maultaschen Recipe

Alright, folks. Today, we are going to make what amounts to German ravioli! Maultaschen are a traditional German dish from the Swabian region, much like our knoephla dumplings. Maultaschen really are a flavorful little pillow of tasty goodness and I had a lot of fun reproducing this traditional dish. This was really a fun one to make and it was great experimenting with our traditional Maultaschen recipe. Go straight to the recipe.

Maultaschen Basics

I already described it as a German ravioli and it is exactly that. It differs from the raviolis that we might recognize in a few ways. Most noticeably, they are bigger. The Maultaschen I made were three inches by five inches. Then, the filling is generally a mixture of minced meat, smoked meat, spinach, bread crumbs, and spices. Finally, this dish is traditionally served in a bowl of broth.

While I have never eaten this before exploring this recipe, I think I did it justice. Follow along and you, too, can make this tasty traditional German pasta.

The Pasta Dough

I have to be upfront that I don’t have a pasta machine. What does that mean? Well, mostly it means making my pasta dough is more of a pain in the butt. It takes more time and there is more waste. You can, however, make great egg noodle pasta without a pasta maker.

I will outline the recipe below, but it is important that if you are rolling it out by hand that you have patience. We want to get this dough as thin as we can and you have to spend some time caring for and rolling this dough out.

Once I have it rolled out, I take a knife and make a big rectangle out of the dough. Then, I cut accordingly. Sizes can vary, but you want them to be a larger rectangle shape. In my whole rectangle of dough, I loosely measured out 3 x 5 inch squares.

If you have a pasta maker or purchase rolled out pasta dough, I assume you are going to have an easier time at this.

The Maultashcen Filling

I had quite the time getting my proportions right for the amount of pasta that I made. I was able to get 6 maultaschen from my dough recipe. That means I had to scale my filling to best match those sizes. I scaled back from a full pound of ground meat to ¼ lb of ground meat.

Broth for Maultaschen

One way this traditional dish can be served is with butter. Another way, and what I like better, is to serve it in a broth. You can use really any kind of bare broth or stock, but I chose to use the chicken stock we previously made.

One thing that I really like about serving this in a broth is that it almost turns into kind of a surprise soup! It faintly reminds me of Italian wedding soup once the dumpling is all broken up and floating around in the broth.

I hope you enjoyed my efforts with this traditional maultaschen recipe and if you make it, please let me know how it goes! If you like what we are doing here, please subscribe to get updates via email, follow me on Instagram, and follow me on Pinterest.

Maultaschen is a delicious German dish. These ravioli-like pillows of awesomeness can be served plainly with butter or in a bowl of broth. Either way, they are delicious.

For Dough:

• 2 cups flour
• 3 eggs + 1 egg for egg wash
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil

For Filling:

• 3 strips of bacon, cooked and chopped
• ¼ pound ground burger
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/2 medium onion, diced
• 2.5 ounces spinach
• 2 Tablespoons heavy cream
• 2 Tablespoons Italian style breadcrumbs
• salt and pepper to taste

For Serving:

1. Add dough ingredients (minus one egg for egg wash) to stand mixer.
2. Mix with dough hook (or by hand) for 10 minutes and until smooth
3. Now would be a good time to cook the bacon if it isn’t already
4. Also, fill a pot with water and place on high for cooking spinach
5. Wrap and put dough in the fridge for 30 minutes
6. Once water is boiling, add spinach
7. Boil spinach for three minutes
8. Drain and run cold water through.
9. Once spinach is cooled, dice
10. In a large pan, brown burger on medium-high heat.
11. When about 1/2 done, add in onions and cook.
12. When nearly done, add spinach, breadcrumbs, nutmeg, parsley, and cream to mixture and cook until everything is heated and hamburger is done.
13. Place in a bowl and put in the refrigerator.
14. Once dough has been in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, remove.
15. On a floured surface, roll out dough to be as thin as possible or use a pasta maker. Have patience. This may take some time if you are rolling out by hand.
16. Once rolled, cut into an even number of 3-inch x 5-inch sheets
17. Place a few tablespoons of filling in center of one sheet. Enough to comfortably fill this like a ravioli.
18. egg wash edges and place a second sheet over top.
19. use fork to crimp edges and set aside
20. repeat for all Maultaschen dough. You should have at least 6 Maultaschen.
21. Bring large pot of water to gentle boil.
22. Add Maultaschen and cook for 10 minutes
23. Warm broth or stock
24. Using slotted spoon, remove Maultaschen and place in a bowl of stock or broth
25. Top with green onions and serve

I dig food and drink. One thing I really enjoy is digging deep into recipes and history. I like to think that I have an L.A. face and an Oakland bootie, but nobody has ever really verbalized it before. They are probably thinking it. Find out more in the About page.

Originally published at ramshacklepantry.com on November 21, 2018.