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I wanted to make a somewhat easy comfort meal this week and stuffed shells felt right. I made this recipe up on my own and I don’t really measure my spices — I do it to taste (but will approximate the measurements for you below). The sausage in the ricotta mixture adds an extra bit of heartiness but this could easily be made meatless with spinach or other veggies.
I serve this with a homemade Caesar salad and frozen Texas toast. This recipe made two pans — I froze one for an easy heat and eat situation later. To see it all, step-by-step, check out my Instagram reel.
Ingredients
2 lbs ground mild Italian sausage
2 boxes jumbo shells pasta
4 15oz containers ricotta cheese
4T garlic powder
1T garlic salt
1T oregano leaves
2 jars marinara (or your fave) pasta sauce
1/2c shredded mozzarella cheese
Instructions
- Brown your Italian sausage in a skillet over medium heat, breaking it up as you go – you do not want large pieces.
- Bring a large pot of water to boil and add shells. Cook for approximately 10-12 minutes until Al dente.
- Heat oven to 350°.
- Add ricotta and spices to a large bowl and mix well.
- Drain water from pasta once finished cooking.
- Strain extra grease off of sausage when it has finished cooking and add to ricotta mixture. Mix well.
- Add approximately 1/2c. pasta sauce to bottom of an oven safe baking dish (9×13 works well) and ensure the bottom is coated completely.
- Add large amount of ricotta mixture to a gallon size zip top bag and cut corner off to allow you to pipe the mixture into the shells.
- Carefully pipe the ricotta and sausage mixture into shells, individually. Place on top of pasta sauce in dish filling side up.
- Once dish is full, pour additional pasta sauce on top of the shells and top with mozzarella cheese.
- Bake for approximately 40-50 minutes in your oven until sauce is bubbly and cheese has melted.
- If baking a pan from frozen, bake at 375° for about an hour or longer to ensure fully heated.
Enjoy and let me know if you try it!