How to Make Stuffed Shells Freezer Meal
Ingredients:
Directions:
Start by cooking your noodles as directed on the package, or for 8 to 10 minutes, until tender. To make the noodles easier to handle, rinse them in cool water.
Brown ground beef while noodles are cooking, then season with salt and pepper to taste. When your beef is fully cooked, add a can of spaghetti sauce to it. The bottom of your pan or baking dish should be covered with about a third of this meat sauce.
You’ll mix your ricotta, egg, 1 cup of mozzarella, parmesan cheese, basil, oregano, rosemary, and garlic salt in a medium bowl. Cream all of these ingredients together until smooth.
Next, stuff the cooked pasta shells with the ricotta mixture. Rows of them should be added to your pan on top of the sauce.
Once all of your shells have been filled, top them with the remaining meat sauce. On top of the dish, top with the remaining cheese.
Now, you have three options: bake the dish right away and serve it, freeze it without cooking it first, or prebake the dish before freezing it.
In order to freeze your dish, wrap the pan in foil and place it in the freezer. Make sure the instructions are on top of the foil so that you are prepared to cook it.
When you’re ready to serve, either cook directly from the freezer or thaw in the refrigerator overnight. If baking from scratch rather than pre-baking from frozen, allow a full additional hour.
Cooking Instructions: When you’re ready to prepare your meal, bake it at 350° F for 50–55 minutes, or until the top is bubbly and golden.
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This recipe for freezer stuffed shells is delicious and simple to prepare; you can freeze the stuffed shells and bake them later when you need a quick weeknight meal. This recipe will teach you how to make stuffed shells!.
To Freeze:
How to Make Giant Cheese Stuffed Shells
First, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Next, cook your shells for only half the amount of time specified on the box. For these, that means 6 minutes. To prevent them from becoming mooshy later, you want to slightly undercook them.
Take all other ingredients and place in a large bowl. Stir this up until really well blended and fully combined. Or until it looks like mashed potato salad.
When your shells are finished cooking, drain them in a colander and stop the cooking by rinsing them with cold water. Drain again.
Place each large pasta shell in your hand and squeeze it open like an old-fashioned coin purse to stuff it. I use a serving spoon to place a large spoonful of the cheese mixture inside before allowing it to completely close.
Continue until all shells are filled, and then transfer them to a baking sheet lined with greased or waxed paper.
For about an hour, or until the shells are once more frozen and hard, place this baking sheet, uncovered, in the freezer. When you put them in bags for longer-term freezing, this will prevent them from sticking to one another.
Fill gallon-sized zipper-seal freezer bags with the frozen ricotta cheese-filled shells, then store them there until you need them.
Put a little marinara sauce in the bottom of a baking dish when you’re ready to bake these stuffed cheese shells. Or you could make our easy spaghetti sauce as well.
Top with however many frozen shells you want to bake.
Spoon more sauce over the top. Bake this at 350 degrees for approximately 45 minutes, or until heated thoroughly and bubbling. Cover with foil or a lid.
Enjoy your stuffed pasta shells!
Pasta leftovers can be kept in the refrigerator for up to five days in an airtight container. Additionally, your freezer bags last for up to three months. Before continuing with the rest of the baking instructions, defrost in the refrigerator overnight.
Even though this is the main course in and of itself, I suggest serving it with a straightforward salad like my tomato, onion, and cucumber salad. Additionally, you could serve them with my parmesan crisps or some traditional garlic bread.
As I previously stated, this recipe yields approximately 35–40 cheese-stuffed shells. People frequently inquire “How many does this recipe serve,” to which my first thought is “How hungry are you?” I can’t really tell you how many people a recipe will feed in your family, so There are too many variables.
Once you’ve cooked for your family for a while, you should be able to look at a 9-inch-by-13-inch or an 8-inch-by-8-inch casserole dish, consider it for a brief moment, and know how much food it will hold for you all, taking into account whether you’re serving anything else.
My best recommendation is to observe the size of the dish that the meal is being prepared in so that you can gauge the amount of food being produced and compare it to the size and eating preferences of your family. Most of my recipes serve four because my family of four consists of two adults, one teenage boy, and one tween girl, and occasionally there is leftover food for one or two lunches. This means I have less work the next day.
