National Ravioli Day: A pasta promotion opportunity

On March 20, restaurants around the country can leverage National Ravioli Day with promotions that range from daily specials to half-priced offerings. On this pasta-promoting day, customers who tend to order “the usual” may be drawn instead to experiment with ravioli items on the menu at their favorite restaurant.

Bostonians, for example, can indulge in ravioli at local restaurants such as Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse, Legal Sea Foods, Prezza and 75 on Liberty Wharf.  Davio’s will present its lemon ricotta ravioli with orange butter sauce ($19 at lunch; $25 at dinner), available only on March 20. Meanwhile, at 75 on Liberty Wharf, customers can dig into menu items like pumpkin ravioli ($11 at lunch; $19 at dinner) featuring sautéed native butternut squash with garden sage, tomato vodka sauce and grated Parmesan. Legal Sea Foods offers fish-shaped cheese ravioli on the kids’ menu ($6.50) at all its locations, and among Prezza’s menu selections are walnut ravioli ($15 at lunch; $30 at dinner) with rabbit, sage, butter and Parmesan.

With an almost endless variety of ravioli fillings and sauces, the promotion possibilities abound. In fact, we won’t be surprised if steamed wontons, pot stickers and pierogies decide to crash ravioli parties as well. Here are five recipes to inspire your ravioli creativity.

• Duck confit and Boursin cheese ravioli

• Roasted lamb and goat-cheese stuffed peanut ravioli

• Pumpkin ravioli with grape butter sauce

• Fava bean mozzarella ravioli

• Asian turkey and shiitake mushroom pot stickers