Stuffed Pasta Shells With Homemade Pasta Sauce
I love pasta, cheese and homemade pasta sauce, so stuffed pasta shells bring several of my favorite things together in one pan.
I am particular about pasta sauce. In fact, the only pasta sauce I eat is homemade. Making my own means I decide exactly what goes into it and how it is seasoned, which is one of the reasons this recipe fits so naturally into my homestead kitchen.
Stuffed shells also make a hearty family meal without requiring anything fancy. You have pasta, a rich cheese filling and plenty of sauce baked together until everything is hot and comforting.
In This Article
Homemade Pasta Sauce Makes These Stuffed Shells Better
My homemade sauce is a big part of what makes this recipe taste like mine.
When I can pasta sauce, I like putting basil leaves in the jars and using dried Italian seasoning in the sauce. By the time I open a jar for dinner, those herbs have had plenty of time to flavor the sauce.
I add the ground beef, bacon and additional seasonings when I am preparing the sauce to serve rather than putting those ingredients into the jars. I prefer the way it turns out that way.
I also use red wine salt in my pasta sauce. If you don't have red wine salt and don't want to make it, a little burgundy wine can provide a similar flavor note.
Let the Sauce Develop Its Flavor
If I have the time, I like making the finished meat sauce the day before I need it, refrigerating it overnight and reheating it the next day. In my opinion, the extra time gives the wine and seasonings a chance to come together and creates a deeper flavor.
That also turns part of this recipe into advance meal prep. When the sauce is already made, assembling the shells the next day is one less job.
Stuffed Pasta Shells Are a Good Pantry Meal
One of the practical things about stuffed shells is that many of the ingredients are foods you can keep on hand. Dried jumbo pasta shells store in the pantry, home-canned pasta sauce is ready on the shelf, and dried herbs are available long after the garden has gone dormant.
The cheese and other refrigerated ingredients need to be planned for, of course, but having the sauce and pasta already in storage gets you a long way toward dinner.
That is the kind of food storage I find most useful: ingredients that become meals we actually want to eat rather than food that sits untouched because no one knows what to do with it.
Use What Your Homestead Produces
This recipe can also bring several homestead ingredients together without requiring every single ingredient to be homemade.
Tomatoes and herbs from the garden can become the sauce. If you raise meat, the meat portion can come from your freezer. If homemade cheese is part of your kitchen, it may fit into your own version of the filling when appropriate for the recipe.
And if your pasta shells come from the grocery store, that is perfectly fine. Self-sufficiency isn't a contest to see whether you can manufacture every ingredient before you're allowed to make dinner.
Make Stuffed Shells for Gatherings and Family Dinners
A pan of stuffed pasta shells is also the kind of meal that works well when you are feeding more than just yourself. The individual shells make serving straightforward, and a casserole-style dish is easy to put on the table with bread, a salad or vegetables.
It can work for an ordinary family dinner, a casual get-together or a meal you want to prepare ahead so you aren't doing everything at the last minute.
For a larger group, I would rather prepare enough pans ahead of time than try to cook individual portions while everyone is waiting to eat.
Don't Waste the Homemade Sauce
If you spend summer growing tomatoes and preserving pasta sauce, recipes like this are exactly why you do it.
A jar of sauce on a pantry shelf isn't the finished goal. The goal is opening that jar in the middle of a busy week or during winter and turning it into a meal.
Stuffed pasta shells are one more way to use that preserved harvest, especially when you want something different from an ordinary plate of spaghetti.
Serve the shells hot, add a simple side if you want one, and let the homemade sauce do a lot of the work.
Stuffed Pasta Shells Recipe
The complete ingredients and instructions are in the recipe card below. I have kept the recipe itself intact while updating the article around it with the way I use homemade sauce and pantry ingredients in my own kitchen.
PrintStuffed Pasta Shells
Ingredients
- Ronzoni Jumbo Shells Pasta 12 oz
- 1 ½ pounds ground beef
- 1 quart homemade pasta sauce, seasoned or unseasoned
- 3 cups cottage cheese
- 1 (16 ounce) package shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
- ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 2 Tablespoons bacon bits
- 2 Tablespoons garlic scapes
- 1 Tablespoon fresh basil
- 1 Tablespoon rosemary
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 small chili pepper, whole
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- ½ teaspoon red wine salt
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
- Fill a large pot with lightly-salted water and a three to four drops of olive oil. Bring it to a rolling boil.
- Add the pasta, stirring as you do and return to a boil. Cook the pasta uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the pasta has cooked through but is still firm to bite, about 5 minutes.
- Drain well and rinse the pasta with cold water to stop it from continuing to cook. Set the shells aside.
- Grind the chili pepper, garlic cloves and garlic scapes in a grinder or mortar and pestle.
- Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat to cook the ground beef in until it is crumbly, evenly browned, and no longer pink. Drain and rinse the ground beef with hot water to remove any excess grease.
- Add the bacon, spices and pasta sauce to the ground beef in the skillet. Bring to a simmer over low heat. Cook for 5 minutes stirring frequently.
- Spread half of the sauce into a 9x13-inch baking dish.
- Add the cottage cheese, ¾ of the mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese a large mixing bowl and stir to combine well.
- Spoon the cheese mixture into the shells and set them into the prepared baking dish on top of the sauce.
- Once the shells are filled with the cheese mixture, pour the remaining sauce over the shells and sprinkle with the rest of the mozzarella cheese.
- Bake in oven about 30 minutes until the shells are hot in the center and the mozzarella cheese is melted and bubbly.
Make the Recipe Work for Your Kitchen
The best part of a recipe like this is that it doesn't have to become complicated to be homemade. Use the sauce you preserved if you have it. Use your own herbs when they are available. Pull meat from the freezer if that is part of your homestead food supply.
Then buy the ingredients you don't produce yourself and make dinner.
That is how I think practical self-sufficiency works. The skills you have-gardening, preserving, cooking from scratch and keeping a useful pantry-give you more control over your food. They don't need to create more rules around it.
For me, stuffed pasta shells are ultimately comfort food built around something I am very particular about: a good homemade pasta sauce.
