Deliciously cheesy stuffed shells with spinach are the perfect easy dinner idea. Jumbo pasta shells are stuffed with a cheesy spinach filling, covered in marinara sauce, and baked to perfection. This is the ideal comfort food to enjoy tonight!
Why You’ll Love These Stuffed Pasta Shells
Stuffed shells are a classic Italian dish that can be enjoyed by the whole family. They’re cheesy, saucy, and really satisfying on cold nights. But what makes this recipe even better is the addition of spinach in the filling. It’s an easy way to get your family to eat more greens! Here’s why you’ll love this stuffed shells recipe:
- Easy to Make: Even though the finished dish is impressive, it’s quite simple to put together. Cook the pasta shells, mix the cheese and spinach filling, assemble the casserole, and bake it in the oven. No complicated steps or fancy equipment required.
- Freezer-Friendly: You can make this stuffed shells recipe ahead of time and freeze it for later. Just thaw it in the refrigerator overnight and bake it as instructed. It’s perfect for busy weeknights or when you have guests over.
- Versatile: You can customize these stuffed pasta shells to suit your preferences. You can use different kinds of cheese, add some meat or additional veggies to the filling, or use your favorite marinara sauce. You can also serve it with a salad, bread, or soup for a complete meal.
What You’ll Need
These spinach stuffed shells use simple, traditional ingredients you’ll be familiar with if you’ve ever made lasagna. We’re just assembling them in a slightly different way. Scroll down to the recipe card at the end of this post for exact amounts.
- Pasta: We use jumbo shells for this recipe.
- Spinach: To keep this simple, we recommend frozen, chopped spinach. If you prefer fresh spinach, be sure to sauté it and strain out any excess liquid before adding to the filling.
- Cheese: You’ll want to grab ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, and cottage cheese.
- Egg: Optional, but recommended. Egg will make the filling a bit lighter and more fluffy.
- Marinara: You can use any kind of store brand or homemade marinara here.
- Garlic: Fresh garlic will add the best flavor.
- Salt and Pepper
How to Make Spinach Stuffed Shells
This stuffed shells recipe will hit all your cravings for comfort food and have you coming back for more. Jumbo shells are absolutely packed with filling, giving you so much cheesy goodness. Your taste buds are in for a treat! Be sure to check the recipe card at the bottom of the post for detailed directions.
- Prepare: Preheat your oven to 350°F, grease a 10×15 baking dish with nonstick spray, and put a pot of water on to boil.
- Cook Pasta: Once your water has come up to a boil, add some salt and cook the jumbo shells for 8-10 minutes or until they’re just al dente. Drain the pasta and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process. Do not overcook or the end result will way too soft.
- Make the Filling: While the pasta is cooking, combine the spinach, egg, garlic, ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, and cottage cheese in a large bowl and mix together. Season with salt and pepper until you’re happy with the flavor.
- Assemble the Shells: Add a cup of marinara sauce to the bottom of your baking dish and spread it out evenly. Fill each cooked shell with 2 tablespoons of the cheese mixture and place them on top of the sauce. Keep going until the entire dish is full. Top the shells with the remaining sauce and sprinkle on some mozzarella.
- Bake: Cover the stuffed shells with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and cook for an additional 10 minutes until edges are bubbly and cheese is melted. Serve immediately!
Can I Prep This Stuffed Shells Recipe Ahead of Time?
You certainly can! We do it all the time and think this is the perfect make ahead recipe. You can prep spinach stuffed shells up to 48 hours in advance. Just make sure and wrap the dish tightly with foil or saran wrap before storing in the refrigerator. Allow the pan to rest on the counter for 30 minutes before baking and then cook according to recipe directions.
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Tips for the Best Results:
Here are a few tips from our kitchen to yours. Following these will help ensure you enjoy the cooking process and the end result!
- Baking Dish: If you do not have a 10×15 sized casserole pan, you can use a 9×13 instead. You’ll probably have a few extra stuffed shells leftover to a smaller casserole dish. Don’t be afraid to be flexible with this. You can use multiple dishes to create this simple recipe.
- Don’t Overfill: Do not overfill your shells or the filling will ooze out while baking. And while this doesn’t really affect the taste, it does make the centers less “stuffed”, which is all part of the fun! It’s also not as pretty, either.
- Drain the Spinach: Make sure you drain the excess liquid out of the spinach fully. I like to use cheese cloth to do this, but you can also use a mesh strainer and a spatula or wooden spoon to press the excess liquid out.
How to Serve Stuffed Shells?
This dish is hearty enough to make a complete meal, but there are a lot of options if you’d like to add something extra. We serve our stuffed pasta shells with a big Italian or caesar salad and some garlic bread. You really don’t need anything more than that for a filling and delicious meal.
How to Store and Reheat
As easy as this recipe is to put together, it’s even easier to store and reheat for later. Here are our recommendations on storing, freezing, and reheating stuffed shells.
- Refrigerate: Place cooked leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
- Reheat: You can reheat in the microwave for a quick lunch or in the oven if you have extra time. Since stuffed shells are rather dense, we usually opt for the microwave.
- Freeze: You can freeze leftover stuffed shells for up to 3 months if you made way too many to enjoy right away. When you’re ready to eat, let the shells thaw overnight in the fridge. Set them out on the counter for about 30 minutes, and then reheat either in the microwave or oven.
More Easy Pasta Recipes
Stuffed Shells with Spinach
Ingredients
- 12 oz jumbo shells
- 10 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed and excess water squeezed out
- 24 oz cottage cheese
- 15 oz ricotta cheese
- 1 cup shredded parmesan cheese
- 1 large egg
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ¾ teaspoon fresh cracked pepper
- 28 oz good-quality marinara sauce
- 8 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
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Instructions
- Preheat oven two 350°F. Grease a 10×15 baking dish with non stick spray.
- Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain and rinse with cold water. Do not over cook pasta.
- While pasta cooks, in a large bowl, combine spinach, cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, egg, garlic, salt, and pepper.
- Assemble: Add 1 cup of marinara sauce to the bottom of prepared dish and spread evenly. Fill each cooked pasta shell with 2 tablespoons of the cheese mixture and place them on the sauce layer. Repeat with the shells until all are filled.
- Top the shells with the remaining sauce. Sprinkle on the mozzarella.
- Cover casserole with foil and bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes. Remove foil and cook for 10 minutes more until edges are bubbly and cheese is melted. Serve immediately!
This brought me back to sitting in my grandparents kitchen on the counter as a little girl watching my grandpa make me stuffed shells. <3