Garlic Butter Sauce for Ravioli

Combine this garlic butter sauce for ravioli with ham and peas for a quick and easy dinner that the whole family will love! Simply toss together pre-made ravioli, leftover ham, frozen peas, and the garlic butter sauce for one yummy dish! 

Ravioli in Butter Garlic Sauce

One of my favorite traditions about Easter is gathering together with family and friends to enjoy a ham, homemade crescent rolls, and scalloped potatoes (or these twice baked potatoes). Oh and doing Easter egg hunts of course but that’s a totally different post.

Somehow it doesn’t matter how many people we have eating ham, we always have leftovers and are always looking for ways to use up leftover ham. I can only eat these ham and cheese empanadas for so long. 

This garlic butter sauce ravioli is a recipe that we’ve been making for years! It’s a super simple recipe that’s perfect for using up leftover ham from Easter or Christmas or just to make as a quick weeknight meal!

• Pasta – we prefer ravioli but if you don’t have ravioli, another stuffed pasta like tortellini would work just fine too. We used four cheese ravioli. You can use either frozen or fresh, just make sure it’s cooked before you add it to the dish. You could also use homemade pasta if you want but that’ll take later!
• Butter – make sure it’s salted butter. If you only have unsalted butter, I recommend adding 1/2 tsp salt to the dish. Then if you need to, you can add a pinch of salt or salt to taste if you want.
• Garlic – you’ll want to use fresh garlic.
• Heavy cream – the heavy cream is what give this butter cream sauce its creaminess, so stick with heavy cream rather than something like milk.
• Ham – we like this with diced ham but you could also do diced bacon or diced prosciutto.
• Peas – you can use either frozen peas (at room temperature) or fresh peas. Or if you want to do something else chopped asparagus or sliced zucchini would be great too.

This is one of the easiest recipes ever – on the table in under 30 minutes, maybe even less! Make sure to read the recipe card at the bottom of this post for specific details, measurements, timing, etc. for the recipe.

This is just a basic outline of how easy is to to make! 

1 – Cook your pasta

Cook your ravioli according to the package instructions in a large pot, then strain.

While you’re cooking the pasta, you’ll make the sauce – the goal will be to time it so that your pasta is ready about the same time as your sauce is done so you can add the pasta right into the sauce. 

2 – Make the garlic butter sauce

Melt butter in a saucepan large enough to hold your sauce and ravioli and add your garlic. 

Add the chicken broth and deglaze then add in your cream. This will make the base of your creamy garlic butter sauce. 

3 – Add the peas and ham

Add in your thawed peas and diced ham then bring the sauce to simmer and simmer until thickened. This helps to flavor the ham and peas while also thickening the sauce. 

4 – Add the ravioli

Add your ravioli or other stuffed pasta directly to the sauce and stir to coat. Then top with fresh parmesan.

5 – Serve hot

Serve the pasta hot and topped with parmesan, making sure to get plenty of the sauce, ham, and peas with the pasta when you plate it! 

Recipe FAQs

If you like pasta, add one of these other dinner recipes to your weekly menu!

• Creamy pesto pasta – another quick and easy pasta recipe, made with fresh basil!
• Mushroom artichoke pasta – another quick and easy pasta recipe made with mushrooms and artichoke!
• Sweet spaghetti sauce – a super easy spaghetti sauce made with a little honey to make it sweet!
• Baked ziti with ricotta – this one-dish pasta dish is maybe the easiest pasta dish yet!
• Instant pot fettuccine Alfredo – another toss everything in one pot and make it pasta dish!