The Genius Way Rachael Ray Makes Cannelloni If She Doesn't Have The Right Pasta

Not everyone uses the whole box when they're making lasagna, leaving people in a pinch when it's time to use the leftovers. There aren't always enough pieces for another whole lasagna, and if you have to crack open a new box to make one, then the cycle starts all over again. Don't let leftover lasagna be a struggle ingredient — Rachael Ray has a hack for turning this pasta into perfection.

Rachael Ray has shared iconic TV show moments, cookbooks, and clever cooking tips to audiences for decades. In an Instagram post, Ray documented her process for turning lasagna into another classic Italian pasta called cannelloni. Cannelloni is a smooth, tube-shaped pasta that looks like a large version of ziti — almost the size of a cannoli. More often, you'll see its sister pasta, manicotti (akin to a large penne), in American cuisine.

Ray turns lasagna into cannelloni by scooping the filling into one end of the sheet and then rolling it into a neat tube. Taking your burrito and makizushi-rolling skills, start from the full end of the lasagna and work from the back to the front. Because lasagna comes in large, flat sheets, the result of this technique is a snug cylinder that can hold dollops of homemade tomato sauce and cheese.

Working with lasagna tends to stump home cooks because of its large, slippery nature. A common blunder is overcooking the pasta before putting it into the oven. In any of the steps from the boiling water to the baking pan, overcooked lasagna stands a high chance of ripping apart as you work with it. Rachael Ray skirts this error by par-cooking the lasagna before rolling it into cannelloni.

Boiling the lasagna enough to make it malleable, but not enough to be mushy, is the trick. Using a pair of tongs, pull the lasagna from the boiling water right before it reaches al dente (around 4 to 6 minutes for most boxed varieties). Lasagna releases a lot of starch while boiling, so mix a little bit of that leftover salty water with the tomato sauce for a bit of extra flavor. The lasagna-turned-cannelloni will finish cooking in the oven, where moisture from the sauce will allow it to soften into the pasta of your dreams.

The cannelloni should sit in the pan similar to how you'd see an enchilada arranged — side by side, smothered in sauce and cheese on top. To make sure they don't unravel while baking, add a bit of the cheese where the seam is to help weld everything together. For the filling, you can use any other leftover ingredients in your kitchen. Mushrooms, spinach, zucchini, and ground meat mix well with the ricotta and Parmesan. Sometimes the wrong pasta can be the right pasta with some clever kitchen wizardry.