Stuffed Shells

Name: Stuffed Shells
Total time: 2700 s
Yield: 4-6 servings
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 16 jumbo pasta shells; 2 small onions; 1 stick butter/margarine; 2 egg whites (or 1/3 cup egg beaters or equivalent); 15 ounce skim milk ricotta; 8 ounce bag part skim mozzarella; 1/2 cup parmesan or romano cheese; 1/2 tsp. sugar; 1/2 tsp. garlic powder; 1/8 tsp. salt x2; 1/8 tsp. pepper; 1/4 bag spinach (2 oz.); 2 (28 oz.) can Redpack crushed tomatoes (or 2 cans plum tomatoes); 1 Tbsp. dried basil

Reidphoto @reidrealty

Fair Oaks, PA

These are a low-fat, vegetarian version of classic stuffed shells. I didn't put that in the title so it wouldn't scare people away. It's an easy recipe with most of the fat eliminated. And, it's just as good!

Reidphoto @reidrealty

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Ingredients

45 minutes

4-6 servings

16jumbo pasta shells
2small onions
1 stickbutter/margarine
2egg whites (or 1/3 cup egg beaters or equivalent)
15 ounceskim milk ricotta
8 ouncebag part skim mozzarella
1/2 cupparmesan or romano cheese
1/2 tsp.sugar
1/2 tsp.garlic powder
1/8 tsp.salt x2
1/8 tsp.pepper
1/4 bagspinach (2 oz.)
2 (28 oz.)can Redpack crushed tomatoes (or 2 cans plum tomatoes)
1 Tbsp.dried basil

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Steps

45 minutes

1

Get the sauce cooking. Melt butter/margarine in medium pot (or slow cooker) on LOW HEAT, mince onions as fine as possible and add to pot with the butter. Let simmer for 2 minutes to blanch onions.
2

Mix dried basil with a 1/4 cup of water and microwave in a cup for 45 seconds. This will make a basil "tea". Strain and add basil "tea" to the sauce.
3

Add cans of tomatoes, basil "tea", pepper, sugar and 1/8 tsp. salt to pot and let simmer at least an hour (or two). Add more sugar if you like it sweeter.
4

Boil the shells and let cool being careful not to get them torn up.
5

Mix thourloughly the ricotta, parmesan, eggs, garlic powder, 4 oz. mozzarella and cleaned spinach (remove the stems!). I used about a quarter of a bag of spinach.
6

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add several ladles of the tomato sauce to a casserole dish. Stuff the shells with cheese mixture and line the casserole dish with stuffed shells.
7

Pour a few more ladles of the tomato sauce over the shells. Cover the dish with foil, poke a hole in the middle to vent. Be careful not to let the tomato sauce get on the foil as it will dissolve the foil! Bake covered for 40 minutes.
8

Uncover and top cooked shells with the rest of the mozzarella cheese. Cook another 10 minutes.
9

Let cool 5 minutes then serve!
10

I've also made this by adding a half pound of hot sausage (or ground beef or even pepperoni) to the sauce. But, the vegetarian version is remarkable. The only really fattening part is the butter/margarine. I don't like using olive oil as it has a distinctly different taste than the more pungent flavor of butter/margarine. Feel free to use either parmesan or romano cheese. Pecorino romano is by far the best to use if you can.