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Italian Beef Rollups have soft pasta rolled up with a savory beef filling, then baked smothered in sauce and cheese.
Get ready for some seriously delicious comfort food!
Italian Beef Rollups are similar to a beef manicotti, but the soft pasta rollups are an old-fashioned recipe of leftover mashed potatoes and flour, plus a little salt. This potato pasta is one variation sometimes referred to as dish rag pasta in Italian cuisine.
A savory beef filling is a made by braising a beef chuck roast low and slow in tomato paste, a hearty and bold red wine, canned crushed tomatoes, beef stock, and seasonings. Once the beef is fall-apart tender, shred with a fork.
The beef is rolled up in the soft pasta, then baked with more tomatoes and two kinds of cheese on top until hot and bubbly.
Why You’ll Love Italian Beef Rollups
- The soft pasta rolled around the savory beef filling and the sauce and cheese is absolutely fantastic.
- This dish is different (in a good way) than the typical Italian American dishes most often served…and your dinner guests will love it!
- You can cook the beef filling ahead of time and make the soft pasta ahead too. Then assemble and bake the casserole when ready to serve.
- The soft pasta can be used for many other dishes – plus it’s a great way to use up leftover mashed potatoes.
Reader Review
“Made the rolls with my 9 year old daughter. She learned and enjoyed the whole process! We always have leftover mashed potatoes and I’ve been creative with it, but never made rolls and I am so glad I did!! Family loved it and planning on making it again! – Luv2eat
Key Ingredients & Substitutions
- Beef – Buy a three-pound chuck roast for this recipe. It’s a flavorful and budget-friendly cut of beef that benefits from long, slow cooking.
- Salt & Pepper
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Onion – We suggest a sweet or yellow onion for this recipe.
- Tomato Paste
- Red Wine – Choose a bold red wine such as Merlot
- Canned Crushed Tomatoes
- Dry Herbs – Basil and Oregano
- Beef Stock or Beef Broth
- Leftover Mashed Potatoes
- All-Purpose Flour
- Cheese – Provolone, Mozzarella, and Parmesan cheeses are all used
Special Tools You’ll Need
- Dutch Oven
- Mixing bowl
- Rolling Pin
- Large Saute Pan
- Sheet Tray
- Parchment Paper
- Cheese Grater
How do you make Italian Beef Rollups?
- Cook the beef filling until fork tender. Shred with a fork. (You can do this a day ahead of time.)
- Prepare mashed potatoes, then combine with flour and salt to make a soft dough. Roll into12 rounds and fry lightly in a dry pan. (This step can also be done ahead of time.)
- Lay out each round and top with a slice of provolone cheese, then a spoonful of the beef filling.
- Roll each round around the filling and lay in a baking pan.
- Top with crushed tomatoes and cheese.
- Bake until hot and bubbly and the cheese has melted.
- Broil to brown the top if you’d like before serving.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Can I make other recipes with the ‘dish rag pasta’? You sure can! Other recipes we’ve seen cut or tear the pasta into smaller pieces – then it’s served, just as any other pasta would be served, with tomato sauce, Alfredo sauce, or this recipe. Or – just like a crepe – you could make a sandwich, or spread with peanut butter and jelly for the kids. The possibilities are endless!
- Can I make the beef in a slow cooker? While we haven’t tried doing so ourselves, it should work.
- Can I use instant mashed potatoes in this recipe? This is another one that we haven’t tried ourselves, but we do think it would work. Just avoid making overly mushy mashed potatoes for the pasta dough.
This Beef Rollups recipe originally appeared on A Family Feast in September 2020. The post has been updated with additional information but the delicious recipe remains the same.
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Italian Beef Rollups
Italian Beef Rollups have soft pasta rolled up with a savory beef filling, then baked smothered in sauce and cheese.
Ingredients
Italian Beef
3 pounds beef chuck
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion sliced into thick slices
6 tablespoons tomato paste
½ cup bold red wine such as merlot
1 14.5-oz can crushed tomatoes
1 teaspoon dry basil
1 teaspoon dry oregano
2 cups beef stock or broth
Roll-ups
2 cups leftover mashed potatoes*
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Other
Flour for rolling the roll-ups
3 cups crushed tomatoes
12 slices provolone cheese
3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Salt and pepper all sides of the beef.
- In a medium heavy bottomed Dutch oven over medium high heat, add oil and sear the beef on all sides, about two minutes per side.
- Remove beef and add onions and cook two minutes.
- Add tomato paste and cook for another two minutes.
- Add the wine, deglaze then add the crushed tomatoes, dry basil, dry oregano and stock.
- Nestle the beef back in, cover and cook 1 ½ hours. Turn beef over in the pot, cover and cook another 1 ½ hours.
- With two forks, shred beef into the liquid. Set shredded beef aside or if making a day ahead, refrigerate.
- Make the rollups by mixing the mashed potatoes, flour and salt to form a dough.
- Roll into a log and cut into 12 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball.
- Flour your counter and roll the dough balls into a 7” circle with a rolling pin. They are easy to roll so I just rolled as I cooked.
- Heat a medium to large nonstick saute pan over medium and once hot, lay out one rollup and cook for 1-2 minutes per side. Have another one rolled and ready and remove the first one and replace with a new one. Repeat for all 12, wiping the pan of any flour a few times during the cooking process. If using right away, loosely cover with plastic and set aside. If making ahead, stack on a plate, cover with plastic and refrigerate.
- When ready to assemble, preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a sheet tray with parchment paper. Cover the parchment with about a cup of the crushed tomatoes.
- Lay out the 12 rollups on your counter and cover each with a slice of provolone cheese (cut the slice in half and lay the two halves end to end to cover to the edges).
- Heat the filling in the microwave if cold and divide the filling equally between the 12 rollups, about ½ cup or more each.
- Roll each tight and line up on the sheet tray, seam down.
- Spread the remaining two cups of crushed tomatoes over the tops of each.
- Divide the shredded mozzarella evenly over the tops of each.
- Sprinkle the tops with the Parmesan cheese and bake for 20 minutes.
- Place under the broiler until browned and serve.
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Notes
*Russet potatoes work best for this recipe. Mashed potatoes made with waxy potatoes such as New Potatoes, may produce mixed results when mixed with flour and salt.
Was really excited to try this but I could not get the mashed potato/flour dough to work! The dough was just too sticky and couldn’t get it to roll out, I tried adding more flour and it just kept getting stickier. Any suggestions?
Flavia
Things that could possibly create this condition would be mashed potatoes too wet to start. Do you add a lot of milk or cream to your mashed potatoes when making them? Also I never compared potato types to see if one type acts differently than another in this recipe (Waxy vs starchy vs all-purpose). For example, I typically use Russet potatoes for my mashed which are low in moisture and fall into the starchy variety. I stay away high moisture waxy potatoes such as New Potatoes, French fingerling, Red Bliss, baby potatoes, creamers, Red Adirondack, or Russian Banana. All-purpose are middle of the road with starch and moisture and are sometimes also used for mashed with varieties such as Yukon Gold and general all-purpose. Sometimes I mix yellow and Russet but almost always use all Russet for mashed.
Without knowing details, this is my guess on why your batch were too sticky.
Good luck,
Jack
This can also be called Irish boxty. The wrapper for this being made up of potatoes and flour etc. would be the same ingredients for boxty (potato pancakes). Delicious!
OK, now I want to do a post just on the wrapper. I bet there are many cultures that make this and call it something different. I added this to my to-do list.
I’m a little confused when you cut it in half and put it end to end. For some reason that doesn’t make sense to me. Do you have a picture for that step? My apologies.
Hi Sue – I’m sorry, we don’t have a photo of that step. But to explain a little more…the provolone cheeses is a round/circle slice and if you place that whole on the “dish rag” whole, it won’t reach to the edges. So, we suggest cutting the cheese slice in half then placing it lengthwise, end to end or tip to tip so it reaches the edges. Hope that helps?
Can you make ahead and freeze to bake later?
Hi Lou – If you’d like to freeze before baking, I’d suggest freezing the cooked beef mixture and the “dish rags” separately – then thaw, bring back to room temperature, and do the assembly right before baking. To prevent the dish rags from sticking to each other as they freeze and thaw, place a sheet of parchment paper in between each one. Alternately, you could bake the tray, then freeze. Hope that helps!
Can I use something other than wine. Not a wine lover. Thanks!
Hi Cynthia – You can swap in beef broth for the wine.
Can the meat be cooked in a crockpot? If so how would you do that? Time, etc.
You can. We haven’t tried it ourselves so without some kitchen testing on our end, I’d only be guessing at the timing. (Probably for longer than if you just braised it in the oven.) Also – we’re not always fans of slow cooking over braising – slow cooking essentially steams the food, while braising (in our opinion) develops and intensifies the flavors because the foods caramelize in a way that you don’t get in a slow cooker. Plus the texture is never the same. But I understand the convenience of slow cookers, so please let us know how it comes out of you try it!
Can you use beef mince in this recepie
Sure Ian – you could certainly swap in ground beef/beef mince.
Can you use a kitchen aid pasta maker to help roll out the dough??? This looks amazing!
Hi Katie – The dough is very soft and rolls out easily. You can certainly use the pasta maker, but you might find that it rolls out just as easy with a rolling pin!
Can this be frozen once baked?
Hi Louise – We haven’t tried doing so ourselves,and no frozen foods are ever quite the same as freshly baked… but overall, we think this recipe should be ok.
Looks and sounds simply delicious. I can’t wait to try!
Thanks Elaine – hope you love it!