Dave's Fave Pasta Shells
Dave’s Fave Stuffed Pasta Shells
Ingredients
- 1/4 teaspoon Kosher Salt to taste
- 8 ounces Jumbo Pasta Shells
- 28 ounces Whole-milk ricotta cheese
- 1 cup Parmesan freshly grated
- 1/2 cup Grated Romano Cheese
- 1 big ball o' Mozzarella Cheese Grated-not the yummy gooey kind. Save that for the Caprese salad.
- 2 tablespoons Minced Fresh Parsley
- 2 tablespoons Pesto or Fresh Basil cut into Chiffonade
- 1 large Egg
- 1/4 teaspoon Freshly Ground Black Pepper to taste
- 2 large jars or more Pasta Sauce, (never enough sauce) 1 Jar Tomato Basil and 1 Jar Vodka Sauce
- 1/2 pound Sweet Italian Sausage
- 3 links Vegetarian Italian Sausage
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta shells and cook 3 minutes less than the time on package; slightly undercooked. Add a dash of olive oil to water. Drain, rinse, and set aside
- Cook your Italian sausage. One pan for the real meat and another for the veggie sausage, (of course!)
- Make two separate sauces because you have carnivores and vegetarians in your life! When the carnivore sausage is cooked, drain any excess oil. Add half of each jar of sauce to both batches of "sausage"
- Let sauces simmer on low while you finish stuff your shells. I add a bit of Italian herbs to the sauce but this is optional.
- The sauce you buy might be just fine with out it.
- In a bowl, mix together the Ricotta, Romano, Parsley, Pesto or Basil, Egg, some salt and pepper, half of the Parmesan and half the Mozzarella. Stir until combined.
- Coat the bottom of two baking dishes with some sauce. Fill each cooked shell with the cheese mixture and place face-down on the sauce. Repeat with the shells until the cheese mixture is gone. Top the shells with the remaining sauce, Mozzarella and Parmesan Cheese.
- Grab one of those broken shells and cut it into a V for Vegetarian and place it on top of the batch of veggie shells. Once cooked they are hard to tell apart! God help you if you serve some of that nasty meat to a vegetarian!
- Bake until hot and bubbly, 35-45 minutes.
- Serve with Rustic Italian Bread and a Caprese Salad because you need more cheese and carbs to go along with all this cheese and carbs.
- Also, for more cheese and carbs serve some more cheese and bread with olive oil and garlic and herb dipping sauce.
Notes
I always feel like I want more sauce. Don't be stingy on the sauce application. I like the shells completely covered. You will have left overs and these are so great to heat up during the week.