3 Easy And Delicious Ways To Cook Frozen Tortellini

Stuffed pasta is always a special treat, and frozen tortellini makes it available at a moment's notice. Most frozen tortellini brands, like these cheese tortellini from Amazon Fresh, offer a few different cooking instructions on the bags to thaw and cook them quickly with minimal effort. The most common way to cook frozen tortellini is by throwing them in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes or by nuking them in the microwave.

Both of these methods are tried-and-true ways to get the job done in under 5 minutes. We even recommend undercooking your frozen tortellini so that it can finish cooking in the sauce you choose to add it to. To that effect, the starchy pasta water used to boil or microwave the tortellini is also a helpful resource to bolster the texture of pasta sauce. If you're willing to think outside of the box, however, there are other easy and delicious ways to cook frozen tortellini that offer more depth of flavor and texture. The instant pot, air fryer, and grill are appliances that can all take frozen tortellini to new heights. Here are the proper ways to cook frozen tortellini using each method.

The instant pot allows you to cook tortellini, sauce, and any other ingredients together, transforming a bag of frozen tortellini into a true one-pot meal. Modern Instant pots are more than just pressure cookers because they also have saute modes, meaning that you can build a sauce with fresh aromatics or brown the meat you'll add to your dish before layering on the tortellini and cooking liquid. Therefore, this method is an excellent way to give frozen tortellini a scratch-made feel with homemade sauce or by adding extra liquid to make a tortellini soup.

If you're making a saucy tortellini dish with store-bought marinara, for example, you can use a bottle of marinara and a cup of broth to cook a 16 oz bag of tortellini. It'll only take two minutes on high pressure to cook the tortellini. Once you've safely let the steam out, you can open the instant pot and stir in fresh spinach, parmesan, and cream to complete the meal.

We have plenty of recipes for tortellini soup, like this chicken and tortellini vegetable soup or this creamy tomato tortellini soup, which you can convert to the instant pot; the same steps apply, you'll just use different modes on your instant pot to saute the base ingredients and then to quickly cook the tortellini in the broth for an extra two minutes. The instant pot will speed up the cooking process at each stage of your soup building, reducing cooking times considerably.

Famous for imparting a deep-fried crisp to anything you place inside of it, the air fryer will transform chewy pasta tortellini into a delightfully crunchy shell with a tender, moist filling. If you don't want a saucy tortellini dish or you'd like to serve tortellini appetizers with a store-bought marinara dipping sauce, an air fryer like this one from Ninja is the appliance you need. It allows you to create a seasoned and flavorful coating to upgrade the texture and flavor of frozen tortellini.

That said, you still need to cook the tortellini before adding them to the air fryer so that the filling stays moist. Start by either boiling or microwaving the tortellini according to the instructions on the packet before draining and adding to a mixing bowl. Preheat your air fryer to 350 degrees Fahrenheit while cooking the tortellini. Once cooked, you can treat tortellini like air fried vegetables or proteins, tossing them with olive oil and the seasonings of your choice before adding them to the basket and cooking for 9 to 11 minutes — you'll want to shake the basket after 5 minutes to ensure even crisping.

Blend this Happy Belly Italian seasoning blend with freshly ground pepper and shredded parmesan cheese to create a tasty and crisp coating. If you're feeling ambitious, you can make a breading station for a shatteringly crunchy crust that'll keep the pasta shell chewy. Serve air-fried tortellini with fresh pesto, marinara, and garlic aioli for an Italian flag-inspired appetizer.

An unlikely method, the grill is the upgrade your frozen tortellini needs. Like the instant pot, you can use a grill basket, like this large Weber basket, to cook tortellini along with other ingredients for a well-rounded meal infused with smoky flavors and those coveted charred grill marks. You don't have to cook the tortellini before grilling them, but you will want to thaw them for around 45 minutes. You can toss tortellini with veggies, seasonings, and oil in the grill basket while you preheat your grill or griddle to a medium-high flame or heat. Place the basket on the grill, close the top, and cook for about 16 minutes, shaking the basket to flip the ingredients halfway through.

If you want a more elaborate tortellini meal, you can layer ingredients according to cooking time, starting with strips of beef or chicken to brown and grill. After cooking the chicken, you can layer on vegetables like zucchini and eggplant to cook, followed by the tortellini and quick-cooking veggies like mushrooms and leafy greens. Don't have a grill basket? You can use skewers instead! Follow our recipe for grilled tortellini skewers for a festive meal on a stick to serve with homemade dijon vinaigrette. You could also add beef to the skewers and swap a vinaigrette with this recipe for fresh chimichurri.