Sausage Stuffed Shells

A few weeks ago the wife and I went to an Italian Festival.  A local grocery store was one of the sponsors of the event and they had a little shop setup selling various Italian products.  They gave me an awesome deal on some Ricotta cheese two 15 oz tubs for $1!  Well I couldn’t pass that up.  Since getting the Ricotta cheese I have been trying to determine what recipe I wanted to make with it and finally decided on making stuffed shells.  But I didn’t want to have the shells stuffed with just cheese so I added in some sausage.  If you wanted your could easily omit the sausage for a meat free dish.

Sausage Stuffed Shells - Done

Ingredients

• 12 oz box of Jumbo Shells

• 1 lb of sausage or 3 sausage links

• 2 eggs

• 30 oz ricotta cheese

• 1 package of mozzarella cheese

• 1 package of parmesan cheese

• 2 jars of your favorite pasta sauce (I used Newmans Own Marinara, it is the best jar pasta sauce I have ever had)

• 1/4 teaspoon Oregano

• 1 tablespoon Parsley

• 1/2 teaspoon Basil

• 1/2 teaspoon Kosher Salt

• 1/4 teaspoon Black Pepper

Sausage Stuffed Shells - Ingredients

Items used to make this recipe

• Skillet

• Large Pot

• Baking Sheet

• Knife

• Measuring Cups

• Cutting board

• 1 Large Bowl

• 9 X 13 baking dish

Recipe

1. OK first off get out a skillet and brown the sausage.  As the sausage is cooking you can begin to break it up into smaller pieces.

2. Bring a pot of water to a boil and throw in the shells so they can cook.

Sausage Stuffed Shells - Cooking Sausage and Shells

3. While you are cooking the sausage and the shells you can mix together the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl.

4. Combine the ricotta, two eggs, oregano, parsley, basil, salt, black pepper, 2 cups of mozzarella, and 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese.  Mix the ingredients well.

5. Once the sausage is done cooking you can put it on a cutting board and cut up the sausage into little pieces.  Then mix the sausage into your cheese mixture.

Sausage Stuffed Shells - Mix Ingredients

6. Once you shells have cooked and are soft take them out of the water and spread them out onto a baking sheet.  This is so they will not stick to each other as they are cooling down.

Sausage Stuffed Shells - Shells separated and cooling

 7.  In your baking dish cover the bottom with some of your pasta sauce.  Next you can begin stuffing the shells with the cheese and sausage mixture.  Spread them out in the baking dish and layer them putting a layer of pasta sauce in between the shells.  Now top with some mozzarella and parmesan cheese.

8.  Bake in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes.

Sausage Stuffed Shells - Assembled

This was an amazing dish.  You just can’t go wrong with ricotta cheese.  It was time consuming to make with close to an hour for the preparation.  But is was so worth the effort and wait!

Enjoy!!!

Sausage Stuffed Shells - Done

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