Stuffed Shells

Whisper's Note:

This is a tasty recipe, especially if you take the time to make your own sauce. (Sometimes I cheat and use bottled - not as good.) I choose to omit the sausage and go meatless. The first time I took this to a church supper, I was asked for the recipe. Cook time includes time to cook sauce and bake in oven.

• Total Time: 4 hrs 30 mins
• Prep Time: 1 hrs
• Cook Time: 3 hrs 30 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 12

Sauce

• 2 onions, chopped
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1/2 lb mushroom, chopped
• 2 (29 ounce) cans tomato puree
• 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
• 1 cup water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons basil
• 2 teaspoons oregano
• 1 lb hot Italian sausage
• 1 box jumbo pasta shells

Filling

• 12 ounces mozzarella cheese, diced
• 2 (15 ounce) containers ricotta cheese
• 4 eggs
• 6 tablespoons parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons parsley
• 2 tablespoons chives
• onion salt or salt
• pepper
• romano cheese, grated

Directions:

1. Sauce: Saute onions, pepper, and garlic in oil for 5 minutes.
2. Add mushrooms and saute 5 minutes more.
3. Stir in tomato puree, paste, water and spices.
4. Cook and crumble sausage in a separate pan; drain off fat.
5. Add to sauce and simmer about 3 hours; add more water if sauce gets too thick.
6. Shortly before assemblage, cook shells according to directions; drain.
7. Filling and Assembly: Combine all ingredients except Romano cheese; spoon into shells (If mixture is too thin, add more Parmesan).
8. Spoon some sauce into bottom of a 9x13-inch pan.
9. Lay stuffed shells in pan.
10. Pour on additional sauce.
11. Sprinkle with Romano.
12. Bake at 325 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

Reviews

[Hey Jude]

Very good! I've been looking for a nice recipe for stuffed shells and I've found it. I used my own homemade spaghetti meat sauce for this but otherwise followed the recipe as written. We liked the addition of chives to the cheese mixture....Thanks Whisper!

[Chef C.S.]

This was amazing! DH said "best sauce ever". Followed recipe exactly except doubled it, added 3 -10oz packages of spinach and a 16 oz container of cottage cheese (these amounts were for a double recipe. I had enough to feed 4-6 families a nice sized dinner. Oh, I also put it in the broiler for a few minutes to broil the cheese on top. yum! Oh, and he said I never need to make lasagna again. Thanks, Whisper.