Stuffed Pasta Shells with Marinara
My dad loves Lasagna and I promised to make some for him, but little did I know we had no Lasagna sheets! Good chefs always think on their toes, I found some jumbo shells and stuffed them with some filling, then ta-da!
Ingredients:
-Jumbo Shells ( 1 box of San Giorgio recommended)
-Lean Ground Beef (cooked and seasoned)
-2½ cups of Ricotta Cheese
-3 cups of Marinara Sauce
-2 cups of Mozzarella Cheese (freshly shredded)
-1 cup of Parmesan (freshly grated)
-Fresh Basil
-Salt
Steps:
Step #1: Bring water to a boil and add the pasta. Follow directions on the box. Once cooked, reserve about ½ cup of pasta water, then drain.
Step #2: Pour the reserved pasta water into the marinara sauce. Mix and leave to the side. **If going to bake immediately, preheat oven to 400 degrees (200 degrees Celsius)
Step #3: In a small bowl, chop the basil into thin strips then mix it into the ricotta cheese. Add the cooked ground beef into the mixture.
Step #4: Pour the ricotta mixture into a ZIPLOC and cut a small hole at the bottom to pipe.
Step #5: Grab a glass cooking tray and pour about half of the marinara sauce to the bottom.
Step #6: Take one jumbo shell and fill it generously with the ricotta filling. Repeat this process until all of your pasta is finished. If you run out of space, you can stack shells on top of each other.
Step #7: To finish, put the rest of the tomato sauce and all the cheese to the top. You can either, store in the fridge covered for at most 5 hours until ready to bake. For baking it immediately put in the oven for about 20 minutes, make sure to watch it because some ovens are stronger than others. Enjoy!💙