Hey everyone, Sam here from Sugar Spun Run and today I will be showing you how to make stuffed shells.
Stuffed shells are one of my favorite dinner options
They are super simple to make. They are a nice hearty filling dinner, cheesy, creamy, absolutely delicious.
I think you are going to be surprised at how easy they are to make in your own kitchen, so let's get started.
The first thing you'll want to do is preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Next you are going to need 20 jumbo shells.
Now, often shells are sold in 12oz boxes. That's going to have more than you need, and when you cook them I recommend cooking a handful more than the actual 20.
And that's because in case if some rip, or they stick to the pan when they are boiling, then you have a few spares.
So I actually went ahead, and I already boiled the shells. As soon as I finished boiling them, you are going to cook them for 9 minutes.
So a little less than what you would cook them to be completely done. These are going to be al dente.
That way they are still a little bit firm, because they are going to soften as they are cooking in the oven.
So anyway, I have already boiled these, and I drained them.
and then immediately after draining, I rinsed them with cold water to stop them from cooking any further and to keep them from sticking together.
And what I am going to do now is, I am going to transfer these to a baking sheet.
And I am just going to spread them out on this baking pan, just setting them here is going to let them drain a little bit more. It's going to let them
finish cooling, while I prepare the actual filling.
So I am going to set these aside, and now we can prepare our stuffed shell filling.
So you are going to want a medium sized bowl for this.
And the first thing we will add is 15 ounces of whole milk ricotta cheese.
We will also add 1 and 1/2 cups of shredded mozzarella.
1/3 cup of grated parmesan.
And the next thing you are going to add is kind of my secret ingredient when making stuffed shells.
This is 4 ounces of softened cream cheese.
So this is going to add a little extra depth of flavor and it's going to add a nice creaminess.
And I have fed these stuffed shells to self-professed cream cheese haters, and they have loved them.
They have never been able to detect the actual cream cheese flavor.
They just know that the filling was really good, really creamy and they loved it.
So even if you don't like cream cheese, I think you are going to like what it does for these shells.
Next, we are going to add one large egg. I am just going to lightly scramble this with a fork before adding it to the cheese.
I also like to add 2 tablespoons of freshly chopped parsley.
A half teaspoon of dried oregano.
A half teaspoon of salt. I actually like to use finely ground sea salt.
and a half teaspoon of ground pepper, and again, I like to use freshly cracked ground pepper.
And the last thing you are going to need is one large clove of garlic, and you are just going to press this in with the rest of the ingredients.
Now you will just mix everything together until it is creamy and well combined.
I am going to see if I can do this in this small bowl that I chose.
I don't know what I was thinking
Make sure you use a bigger bowl than I am using right now. It's going to make the job a lot easier for you.
So once your filling is finished, what we we are going to do is we are going to set that aside and we have our shells already prepped.
Now you are going to need a 9 x 13 baking dish.
So you are going to want to set this down and I am just going to lightly grease this with a little bit of butter.
I want to get the sides and bottom of the pan.
We are going to layer this with just a little bit of marinara sauce.
Now this entire stuffed shells recipe is going to call for 3 cups of marinara sauce.
You can use store bought marinara, but I just shared my favorite homemade marinara. That is what I am using today.
If you haven't tried that recipe out, you are definitely going to want to make it. It's going to add a great flavor to these stuffed shells.
So I am just going to layer the bottom of the pan with this. Just enough to cover the bottom.
Now we'll add our shells. What we are going to do is we are just going to fill each shell with a heaping spoon of our filling.
And we will just place these in our sauce
In nice little rows
And you do want these shells to be pretty well stuffed. That way we use up all of our filling.
So once you have them all prepped, what we are going to do is we are going to take the rest of our marinara,
sauce. Remember, you need 3 cups total for this recipe.
and we already put a layer on the bottom and we are just going to spread this evenly over our stuffed shells.
And we will just spread that around until the shells are mostly covered.
So once I have covered our shells, I like to top them with 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese.
And a little additional grated parmesan.
We are going to cover our stuffed shells before we bake them. So before I put the foil on top, I am just going to
lightly spray it with a little bit of cooking spray. That's going to keep it from sticking to the cheese.
Otherwise when you go to remove the foil, you will peel off all of your cheese.
And of course we'll just flip that sprayed side down and loosely cover our stuffed shells.
So now we are going to transfer these to our 350 degree Fahrenheit preheated oven
Where we will bake them for 20 minutes.
So once the 20 minutes has passed, we are going to remove the foil,
and continue to baked your stuffed shells for another 5-10 minutes,
or until that cheese is melty or even a light golden brown.
And that is how you make homemade stuffed shells.
These are saucy and cheesy and so good!
These are ultimate comfort food. If you guys tried this one out, I would love to hear what you think.
Thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time.
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