Today I present to you the Baked Stuffed Shells in White Sauce, a main course perfect for the Sunday Family Lunch. You can also serve it for big occasions like Christmas Lunch or Easter. They are also ideal for a buffet aperitif, everyone will love them.
The Tasty Stuffed Shells with White Ragù are easy to prepare even if it doesn’t seem so. Follow all the steps of the recipe and the result is guaranteed. I have always prepared them with the white sauce but no one forbids you from adding a few tablespoons of tomato sauce when you brown the ground meat with the mushrooms.
A few weeks ago I introduced you to the Tortellini with White Ragù and you loved them, much to the delight of the “tortellini only in broth or it’s blasphemy” group, and for that I am happy and grateful to you. Experimenting in the kitchen, trying new recipes is something I love very much. Of course, we always look at and preserve the tradition of Italian cuisine, but inventing new recipes is wonderful. Why deprive ourselves? So let’s try these Meat Stuffed Shells together!
If you want to enrich this recipe even more, perfect for the Christmas Menu for example, you can add some homemade Bechamel with butter with the Grandma Licia’s recipe! A real show of taste and flavor, you’ll see that you won’t buy bechamel anymore.
You can find this and many other first course recipes in the Recipe Collection Easy and Delicious Pasta First Courses, ready in 30 minutes, available on my cooking blog! What are you waiting for to read them all?
I don’t want to go on too long before the recipe, so I remind you that you can follow my blog’s social channels so you don’t miss any content. There are: Instagram profile clicking here, Facebook fan page clicking here, and Pinterest board clicking here! I look forward to seeing you!!!
Here are some ragù recipes:
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Cheap
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 4
- Cooking methods: Stove
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
- Energy 383.38 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 56.43 (g) of which sugars 2.54 (g)
- Proteins 17.50 (g)
- Fat 11.19 (g) of which saturated 1.06 (g)of which unsaturated 0.87 (g)
- Fibers 1.81 (g)
- Sodium 136.63 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 125 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
- 2 3/4 cups stuffed shells
- 3 1/2 oz ground pork
- 2 1/2 oz button mushrooms (champignon)
- to taste yellow onion (finely chopped)
- Half carrot (finely chopped)
- to taste extra virgin olive oil
- to taste salt
- to taste black pepper
- to taste dried parsley
- to taste cheese (grated of your choice)
If you want to add homemade Bechamel with butter, find the recipe with ingredients and procedure here on my blog!
Tools
- 1 Pot
- 1 Frying Pan
- 1 Cutting Board
- 1 Knife
- 1 Wooden Spoon
- 1 Colander
- 1 Baking Dish
- 1 Teaspoon
- 1 Oven
- 1 Brush
Steps
Let’s start the preparation of stuffed shells with white ragù from this latter. Take a non-stick frying pan and pour two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil into it. Chop some onion and put it to brown. Dice the carrot, even half is enough if it’s very large. Brown it with the onion. Crumble the ground meat and add it to the pan. Let it cook for about ten minutes and then add the mushrooms. I used already sliced and packaged button mushrooms. Cover and let it cook for another 10 minutes or so.
At this point, bring water to a boil to cook the shells. I chose large ones because they are easier to fill with a teaspoon. Add coarse salt before cooking the pasta. The package indicated 11 minutes for al dente cooking, I cooked them for 9 minutes so that they won’t break and won’t overcook when we put them back in the oven. Drain the pasta and rinse it quickly under running water to stop the cooking.
Now that we have the white ragù ready and the shells as well, we can proceed to the final preparation. If you want, you can use packaged bechamel or you can prepare it yourself with the recipe you find on my blog. Preheat the oven to 356 degrees Fahrenheit in static mode.
Take a baking dish and wet the bottom with some bechamel. Spread it well with the help of a kitchen brush. Fill the pasta with the white sauce using a teaspoon. Gradually place the shells in the baking dish.
Once they are all arranged, sprinkle with parsley, add a dash of black pepper and a pinch of salt. I also recommend a handful of grated cheese, it will create a nice crust on the pasta during cooking.
Bake for about 10 – 15 minutes maximum. Serve the shells hot. As always, I await you for the next recipe and wish you Bon Appetit!!!
Do you want to make homemade bechamel with butter? Perfect, you can read the infallible and super creamy grandma Licia’s recipe by clicking here.
Variations:
You can choose various fillings to stuff the baked shells, from sautéed vegetables to fish sauce. You can add more or less bechamel or not put it at all. I always sprinkle them with a generous amount of grated cheese so that a nice crust forms on the surface during baking.
