This week for my MEAL plan I knew that I had spaghetti with meat sauce and stuffed shell on the menu…so what I did was I double my MEAT SAUCE batch. I love eating spaghetti with meat sauce where as my kids love MEATBALL with their spaghetti. I try to mix it up a little every week since we have spaghetti at least every 2 weeks. I JUST LOVE making meat sauce because I can make extra and have it for other meals.
INGREDIENT
18 jumbo pasta shells
2 pounds ground beef
2 tablespoons chopped onion
2 tablespoon minced garlic
1 (12 ounce) can tomato paste
1 (14 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 eggs
3 cups ricotta cheese
1 (16 ounce) package shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black
DIRECTION
Preheat an oven to 350° F. Fill a large pot with lightly-salted water and bring to a rolling boil; stir in the shell pasta and return to a boil. Cook the pasta uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the pasta has nearly cooked through but still very firm to the bite, about 5 minutes. Drain well and rinse with cold water.
While the shells are cooking, heat a large skillet over medium-high heat; cook and stir the beef, onion and garlic in the hot skillet until the beef is crumbly, evenly browned, and no longer pink. Drain and discard any excess grease; stir in the tomato paste, tomato sauce, brown sugar, salt, oregano, and garlic powder. Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Next, take off heat and spoon half of the meat sauce into a baking dish.
Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl. Stir in the ricotta cheese , 3/4 of the mozzarella cheese, 1 cup of Parmesan cheese, 2 tablespoon parsley, salt, and pepper. Spoon the cheese mixture into each shells and set them into the prepared baking dish. Once all the shells have been filled, pour the remaining meat sauce over the shells and sprinkle with the remaining mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese and sprinkle with some fresh parsley.
Bake in the preheated oven until the shells are hot in the center and the mozzarella/parmesan cheese is melted and BUBBLY around the edge….around 45 minutes to 1 hour.
SERVE HOT!!!
SIDE NOTE: If you prefer to used a marinara sauce of your choice..instead of the tomato sauce and paste. Most of the time I like to use a tomato basil jar of marinara sauce.
I used fresh parsley. You can use dried if you don’t have any fresh on hand.
Ricotta mixture
Boil the shell according to package
Stuffed the shell with ricotta mixture
Layer the stuffed shells with cheese of your choice
Bake uncover for 45-1hr @ 350°
Serve while it’s hot
