Baked stuffed shells are a delicious main course, perfect for bringing to the table on family Sundays, holidays, or simply when you want to indulge yourself at the table.
This version is without tomato sauce, featuring a filling with ground meat, peas, mozzarella, and béchamel sauce as a binder.
Once the shells are cooked, you’ll just need a bit of patience to fill them one by one, and once arranged in the baking dish, bake them for a few minutes.
Now take a moment to read the recipe and then…let’s cook and eat!!
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Medium
- Preparation time: 30 Minutes
- Portions: 4
- Cooking methods: Oven, Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 1 carrot
- 1 stalk celery
- 1 onion
- Half glass white wine
- 14 oz ground beef
- 9 oz mozzarella
- 2 cups ml béchamel sauce
- 2 oz parmesan
- 10.5 oz shell pasta
- to taste extra virgin olive oil
- to taste salt
- to taste pepper (ground)
Tools
- 1 Knife
- 1 Pan
- 1 Pot
- 1 Colander
- 1 Baking Dish
Steps
To prepare baked stuffed shells, you can choose to use ready-made béchamel sauce, but if you want to make it at home, here’s (HERE) the complete recipe.
Start by chopping the celery, carrot, and onion into small cubes, then heat a drizzle of oil in a pan and sauté the mix for the sofrito.
Add the ground beef and brown it well, then deglaze with white wine.
When the alcohol in the wine has evaporated, add the peas.
At this point, add salt and pepper.
Cook for 10 minutes, until the peas have softened.
Transfer everything to a bowl and add half the béchamel, the mozzarella cut into cubes (and drained), and the grated parmesan. Mix and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper if necessary.
Finally, cook the shells until al dente (the ones I used indicated a cooking time of 16 minutes, and I cooked them for 11 minutes). Drain them well (make sure no water is left in the cavity), place them in a bowl, and drizzle with a bit of oil to prevent sticking.
Proceed to spread a layer of béchamel on the bottom of the baking dish, fill each shell one by one, and arrange them in a circular pattern in the dish.
