Quick, simple & delicious Ricotta Stuffed Shells. Loaded with ricotta, mozzarella & Parmesan cheeses and covered in sauce.
Originally created 10/10/16. Updated 4/26/24.
Stuffed Shells Recipe For An Easy Weekday Dinner
Quick & easy dinners are an ever constant popular topic of discussion. People are busy – but we got to eat.
In a perfect world we would all have time to make a “from scratch” dinner each & every night – but then it’s back to the real world. Life, kids, work, housework, schedules, practices, appointments, social lives – there will never be enough hours in a day.
The thing is – people want to eat at home again. They want to make their own food & cook, they want to know what’s going into their food, they want a nutritious meal, they want to sit down at the table with their family and they don’t want to spend a ton of time & money doing it.
I love making my own tomato sauce from scratch and also can about 4 bushels of tomatoes into sauce & crushed tomatoes every summer. Everyone has their approach – I can straight sauce – and season to my liking when cooking with that jar.
But – I don’t always have time to fuss with cooking that sauce!
I have absolutely no shame in taking shortcuts when need be. A good sauce from a jar…? Yup. I’d much rather get a quick & delicious meal on the table using jarred sauce than feed my family fast food or greasy diner food.
Looking for some more pasta recipe ideas? Check out this Pea and Ricotta Carbonara & Spicy Sardine Pasta!
Ingredients & Instructions
These classic stuffed shells are quick to make and can easily be changed up to suit your family’s tastes.
I love keeping this recipe simple and keep the focus on the flavors of the cheeses and the sauce. Plus, I enjoy serving meatless dishes when I can. If you need a little something more than just cheese, try omitting a bit of the ricotta and adding in your favorites. Fresh chopped broccoli, spinach, mushrooms, peppers, browned ground beef, crab meat, crisp bacon – whatever your taste buds prefer.
This dinner takes about an hour to get on the table – most of that time being cooking time.
Get the pasta water boiling, heat up the oven and start mixing your cheeses/fillings. When the shells are al’ dente, start filling with cheese mixture. This can be messy and doesn’t need to be perfect.
Serve these Ricotta Cheese Stuffed Shells with a salad & bread and dinner is complete. This makes quite a bit of food & is very filling, so expect some leftovers. Yay!
I hope you enjoy this Ricotta Stuffed Shells Recipe!
Amanda ♥
Ricotta Stuffed Shells
Ingredients
- 1 box of Jumbo Shells 12 oz
- 2 pounds ricotta cheese approx 4 cups
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese divided
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon parsley
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 1 teaspoon basil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 2 jars of your favorite Tomato Sauce 24 oz each
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°
- Cook pasta in salted water until al’ dente. Drain.
- Mix together ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese, eggs, parsley, oregano, basil, salt, garlic powder & black pepper. Set aside.
- Pour 1 jar of sauce in a lightly greased 13×9 baking dish.
- Fill each shell with cheese mixture.
- Place shell in dish on top of sauce – seam side up.
- Continue with all shells. When dish is full, create a second layer. You can spread a spoonful of sauce over bottom layer of shells to prevent sticking.
- Pour remainder of second jar of sauce over shells. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese.
- Cover with aluminum foil and bake for about 30 – 35 minutes.
Notes
I love simple dishes too. I love these stuff shells. Good stuff!!
Thanks Dawn!
Simple, quick & delicious is always my favorite kind of dinner 🙂
Hi Amanda –
What is a serving size considered?
Hi Michelle. Now that I’m thinking about it – perhaps I should up the serving amount to 6-8 servings….
There’s roughly 35 shells in a box – but I’m guessing that only 24 – 28 shells actually got stuffed. There’s always quite a few broken shells & shells that don’t survive the boiling water.
So I’m thinking 3-4 shells per serving. They definitely are filling.
Hope this helps! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Don’t know about you but my serving would be about 5-6 of those delicious (yes I made them)stuffed shells,
Try this recipe you won’t be disappointed
Promise
am I able to make this ahead and freeze it If so what is best method for thawing & reheating? Should it be baked before freezing ?? Hoping to get a jump start on Christmas dinner TIA
Hi Gerri! I’ve honestly never tried making this ahead & freezing it. I’ve made lasagna for the freezer before – baked & unbaked. It turned out well both ways, but needed extra sauce. Personally, I would cook the shells, fill them, cover them with sauce and freeze. I would defrost completely (in fridge a day or two prior) and bake with additional sauce for 30 – 45 minutes. Hope this helps! Have a Merry Christmas & thanks for stopping by 🙂
Can you make the shells the night before leave them in the refrigerator
Looks sooo good
I have frozen stuffed shells before and defrosted and baked them covered…turned out perfect.
I have not tried this recipe but one with meat and cheese stuffing.
Great to know Steve! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
My husband loves this recipe. So has everyone I have served it to.
Yay – so glad everyone enjoys it! I make it often for my family and it always disappears quick 🙂
Thanks for stopping by Kathy!
for a family of 5 how many boxes should i make to have 2 days thanks peggy
I have a family of 5 and I make 2 boxes. I double the entire recipe and we eat it for dinner and have the rest within 2days and there is plenty!! And they are all boys but me!!!
It was very easy to prepare and my family loved this dish!
So glad to hear you all enjoyed the recipe!
Thanks for stopping by Pamela 🙂
Can you make the shells the night before and leave them in the refrigerator
Hi Laura!
Yup – you can make the whole recipe ahead of time and bake when ready.
35 min didn’t do it. Pulled the pan out of the oven ready to eat and it was still cold. Disappointing to say the least
we tried to make this, we too didnt have it ready to go in 35 minutes. we followed instructions and took it slow as to not miss anything. the middle was not done. :/
Tried many recipes but this is by far my favorite, so good the friends that we’re here requested more LOL so here I am making another batch of 60!!!
So glad you enjoyed John!
I have used a very similar recipe fr years, I have found if I use a sell amount of nutmeg in the filling it gets WOW from all my guests I have served it to. It just. Gives t a different flavor snd folks love it. I always use a fresh marinara dude too.
I LOVE this recipe! I double it to feed everyone! The only difference is I use the new Bertolli Rustic Cuts and get 2 of the marinara and 2 of the sweet peppers ! I have 3 adults, a teenager and his friends, an 8yr old and myself with that version (the 3 mo old sits and stares while drinking his bottle lol as if to say I CNT wait til I can eat it lol) its amazing!!!
Yay! So glad you & your family enjoy the Stuffed Shells.
Thanks so much for stopping by April ♥
Recipe like this become classics for a reason. YUM
Oh girl….this looks like such a great family dinner! I love cooking at home and eating as a family. So important! Pinned!!
Pasta is always a family favorite. Who could resist all that cheese???
I am planning on making this for my son’s birthday meal this weekend. Since we will have meal after church, I will prepare Saturday evening and bake when I get home. I will let you know how they like it. You are my neighbor almost, since I live in York County, PA. Thanks!
Dear Amanda,Thank you for posting this recipe and I am so happy I found it! I made it this past Sunday and it came out wonderfully! I used Seggiano Conchiglioni Organic Pasta shells I bought at Whole Foods (1 lb package or 16 oz.). I found the Organic Shells were a bit smaller, so this recipe, at a generous 1 tablespoon of filling per shell, filled about 55 shells generously. There were about 8 shells that were broken after cooking so I just dipped them in the prepared sauce I had already made and ate them! 🙂 This was the easiest stuffed shell filing I’ve had the pleasure of making, it was very very tasty & very simple to make. I used what I had in the kitchen for spices and only had to improvise on the garlic power. I used garlic salt instead of the garlic powder and I used garlic pepper instead of straight pepper and I added no salt, since it was already in the garlic salt. Otherwise everything was as you provided in your recipe and I used my own sauce. I also agree Bertolli is one of the best “jar” sauces out there so I would also deliciously recommend it if you didn’t have your own sauce made! One other thing is I agree with the folks that said 30-35 mins is not enough time covered at a 350 degree oven. It definitely needed a 45 – 50 minute covered oven time for the middle to be nice a gooey hot middle. This was a wonderful meal to make and I’ve actually shared my delicious results with my family and they are loving it!!! I will definitely add this recipe to my “Family” recipes and pass it down because it was so delicious and easy to make! Adding you to my “Favorites” for sure! Thank you and God bless….Keep these easy and delicious recipes coming! Smiles and a happy belly! Pamela 🙂
Delicious. Made double this recipe to feed 10, and we easily had 1/3 left over even after stuffing ourselves.
Delicious!
I made these Christmas Eve for the non-gf crowd and they were a hit!
Great recipe and came out even better using fresh Italian parsley! The prep time was a bit longer than 15 mins.and the cooking time as well. But I has found if you cook it for 20 mins without covering in foil then another 20 with foil worked like a charm! Total time for me making this was about 2 hours. The most time spent was stuffing the shells. And me personally a serving for me was about 7 to 8 shells.