Sausage and Spinach Stuffed Pasta Shells

I made these for Sunday Supper last weekend and they were a big hit. They're so good that when I told Dave I was going to make another batch on Monday to take to friends he replied 'I'd rather you made them for us and put in the freezer for later' hahaha. So I did both of those things - 1/2 for friends, 1/2 for a freezer meal.

These are sooooo easy, and you can change up the filling if you want. I used a recipe I found here as inspiration with the addition of cooked Italian sausage crumbles and cooked spinach - you could just do the cheese filling if you prefer no meat, or do cheese and spinach... you have options. 

I boiled an entire box of jumbo pasta shells which is way too many - another reason I made a second batch of filling so I could use up the shells. First round I made 2 pans with a total of 43 filled shells, second batch I made an additional 24. 

Here is the filling for the first batch making around 40 shells:

• jumbo pasta shells
• 20 oz. ricotta (1 and 1/2 (15 oz) containers
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella, divided
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan
• 2 eggs
• 2 t. Italian seasoning
• salt and pepper
• 1 and 1/2 jars pasta sauce (I used Ragu chunky traditional)
• 3/4 lb. Italian sausage (I used mild but hot would be good too), cooked and crumbled
• 8 oz. frozen spinach, thawed

To make around 24 shells just reduce the amounts of above ingredients - note I had leftover filling so you can reduce these amounts further if you want, but here's what I did:

• 15 oz. ricotta
• 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella
• 1/2 cup parmesan
• 1 egg
• 2 t. Italian seasoning
• salt and pepper
• 1 jar pasta sauce
• 1/2 lb. Italian sausage, cooked and crumbled
• 5 oz. frozen spinach, thawed

Preheat oven to 375'. Spray a 13x9" baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.

Boil the pasta shells until they are cooked enough to be pliable but not done all the way, about 10 minutes.  They'll cook more when you bake the shells. 

Squeeze out as much liquid as possible from the spinach, I press it between my palms and then blot it with paper towels so it's very dry.

Combine ricotta, three-quarters of the mozzarella, parmesan, egg, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the cooked sausage crumbles and spinach. 

Put a layer of pasta sauce in the bottom of the baking dish. Fill the shells and place on top of the sauce then drizzle the rest of the sauce over top. Sprinkle with the remaining shredded mozzarella. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes, uncover and bake another 10 minutes until the shells are hot and the cheese is melted and slightly browned. 

NOTE: you can assemble these ahead of time, cover and refrigerate until you're ready to bake, add a couple more minutes baking time since they'll be baking from cold. You can also freeze them, bake them from frozen and add 30 minutes onto the baking time. 

cheese filling without sausage or spinach

squeeze and blot as much liquid as possible from the spinach

cook sausage in a pan until no longer pink, break into crumbles

I got this text from Janis after they had the shells for dinner: 

Oh wow!  A 10!  I knew it would be.  We could not stop eating them.  They are addictive!  Yummy!  Thank you so much. It was wonderful not to cook an entire meal.  I just made a salad and they paired perfectly.  Many thanks!  

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