shells baked with pesto-meat sauce

Submitted by afr0bunny

• Ready In: 25mins
• Ingredients: 9
• Serves: 4

ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons salt
• 3⁄4 3/4 lb fusilli or 3/4 lb other shaped pasta, that holds sauce
• 1⁄4 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 lb ground beef
• 2 cups canned chopped tomatoes (i use pomi parmalat for this recipe)
• 1⁄2 cup store bought pesto sauce
• 6 ounces mozzarella cheese, grated

directions

1. heat oven to 400.
2. oil a 13x9 baking dish.
3. heat oil in a pan over med- high heat.
4. cook onion until it starts to soften.
5. add beef and cook until it is no longer pink.
6. drain off any excess fat.
7. add tomato and salt and bring to a simmer.
8. cook about 10 minutes, until most of the tomato liquid evaporates.
9. remove from heat and stir in the pesto.
10. while all this is going on, you should be cooking your pasta in boiling, salted water.
11. drain pasta and toss with the sauce.
12. put 1/2 of the pasta in baking dish.
13. top with 1/2 the mozzarella and 2 tbsp of the parmesan.
14. layer the remaining pasta on top, topping it with the remaining cheeses.
15. bake until bubbling.

Reviews

[drew_wsu]

I may have not prepared this to a T, but I didn't enjoy it as much as other dishes. The pesto was barely noticable and I even added more. I used low fat mozzarella which made the cheese rubbery, so if you use low fat, I would recommend mixing all the ingredients together instead of layering. Also, this should serve much more than 4. You may want to add some tomato sauce to make the dish a little less dry.

 

[Harmoni]

Awesome recipe!!!! Great flavor!!!! I reduced the amount of tomatoes to 1 can and the tomatoes actually took on a meaty flavor. I also used recipe # 31164 for the pesto sauce.

 

[Marla Swoffer]

Hearty and delicious! I used ground turkey (1.5 lbs), homemade spinach pesto, basil paste, and 8 pieces of cheese that I peeled into smaller sections. It was easy but it took about twice as long as the time listed--about 30 min. prep and 30 min. in the oven. I even skipped the simmering step (the tomatoes didn't have much juice). But it's not labor intensive and everyone gobbled it up, so next time I'll just start a little earlier.

 

[Jamia Motsinger]

This is a good recipe. Quick, easy and tasty. I was afraid it was going to be too salty, but after the pasta was added, too my delightful surprise, it wasn't. Thank you for sharing. I will make this again.

 

[ShanaV]

This was a quick easy recipe my 2 year old loved it and my husband as well. This is a definetly a keeper. Great!