Make Ahead Stuffed Shells
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated Make Ahead Magazine. I add Italian sausage to mix things up a little bit. Yummy and gooey cheeseliciousness!
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated Make Ahead Magazine. I add Italian sausage to mix things up a little bit. Yummy and gooey cheeseliciousness!
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 cup parmesan cheese grated
- 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- table salt
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 2 tablespoons dried basil
- 1/4 cup red wine
- marinara sauce
- 3 teaspoons garlic cloves minced or pressed through garlic press
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 2 28 ounce cans crushed tomatoes
- 1 cup low sodium chicken broth
- 1/2 teaspoon table salt
- stuffed shells
- 1 12 ounce box jumbo pasta shells
- 3 cups ricotta cheese
- 3 cups mozzarella cheese shredded
- 2 teaspoons garlic cloves minced or pressed through garlic press
- 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves finely chopped
- 2 large eggs plus 2 yolks lightly beaten
- Carbohydrate 58.5283175184385 g
- Cholesterol 152.192 mg
- Fat 30.5961116484375 g
- Fiber 5.73375995122343 g
- Protein 47.5243782265625 g
- Saturated Fat 16.284490109375 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (529g)
- Sodium 1349.7401046875 mg
- Sugar 52.7945575672151 g
- Trans Fat 2.6455507015625 g
- Calories 696 calories
Step-by-step
- For the Sauce: Heat oil, garlic, and pepper flakes in large saucepan over medium heat until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add wine and vinegar and simmer until reduced by half about 2 minutes. Stir in tomatoes, broth, basil, sugar and salt, and simmer until slightly thickened, about 15 minutes. Set aside to cool.
- For the Shells: Bring 4 quarts water to boil in a large pot. Add 1 tablespoon salt and shells and cook until tender, 12 to 14 minutes. Drain and cool shells. Reserve 30 shells, discarding any that have broken.
- Combine ricotta, Parmesan, 1 1/2 cups mozzarella, garlic, eggs and yolks, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in bowl. Fill each shell with 2 tablespoons filling by spooning the ricotta mixture into a ziploc bag. Snip off one corner of the bag with scissors and pipe the filling into the shells.
- To Assemble: Divide 2 cups cooled marinara between two 8 inch square baking dishes. Arrange half of filled shells seam-side down in each dish, then top each dish with 1 1/2 cups marinara.
- To Store: Wrap dishes with plastic wrap and cover with foil. Transfer remaining sauce to airtight container and remaining mozzarella to ziploc freezer bag. Freeze shells, sauce, and cheese.
- To Serve: Defrost shells, sauce, and cheese in refrigerator for 8 hours. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Remove plastic from shells and replace foil. Bake until sauce is bubbling and shells are heated through, about 50 minutes. Remove foil and top shells with reserved sauce and cheese. Bake until cheese is spotty brown, about 10 minutes. Cool 15 minutes. Serve.
Crushed canned tomatoes provide the structural foundation for this dish, supplying uniform acidity and moisture that fresh tomatoes simply cannot match without hours of reduction. Industrial tomato processing locks in peak-season brix levels, ensuring that a 28-ounce can delivers predictable sugar-to-acid ratios that raw fruit rarely matches outside of August. When building a marinara from canned fruit, simmering the base for 15 minutes drives off excess water and concentrates the glutamates necessary to coat heavy pasta shells.
Scaling this preparation upward requires careful attention to the ratio of surface area to depth in your baking vessels. Doubling the recipe means splitting the pasta across multiple eight-inch square pans rather than crowding a single deep vessel, because stacking shells restricts heat penetration and leaves the centers cold. When dividing filling quantities for larger batches, maintain a strict allotment of two tablespoons per jumbo shell to prevent blowouts during the 400-degree baking phase.
Shifting between fresh and preserved ingredients alters the moisture balance significantly within baked pasta. Using fresh ricotta introduces higher water content than commercial low-moisture alternatives, which demands a longer resting period of 15 minutes post-bake to let the internal proteins coagulate and set. Similarly, swapping dried basil for fresh leaves changes the aromatic profile; fresh herbs should be folded into the cold cheese mixture rather than simmered long-term, preserving volatile oils that heat otherwise destroys.
Freezing unbaked pasta dishes introduces ice crystal formation that weakens cell walls in both the dairy and the pasta exterior. To counteract this degradation during the eight-hour refrigerator defrost, wrapping dishes tightly in both plastic and foil prevents freezer burn and surface dehydration. Removing the foil during the final ten minutes of the baking cycle allows direct radiant heat to brown the mozzarella topping into a spotty, caramelized crust.
