No cheese is needed for these flavorful stuffed shells filled with Italian sausage, red sauce, and spinach.
Stuffed shells are one of my all time favorite “special” meals. I say special because they really do take a bit of time to prepare, so you’re obviously not going to make them on a weekly basis. But, I still love them. I shared my recipe for spinach and ricotta stuffed shells last summer, and believe me when I tell you they are amazing.
Since we stopped eating dairy (for the most part), I’ve been dying to come up with an equally satisfying dairy-free version, but I am not really into whole fake cheese scene. At least, not yet. So I thought I would give a meat filling a try, and to make things a little healthier, I went for Italian turkey sausage and spinach stuffed shells.
And, it was a fantastic idea. They turned out perfect (after a few tweaks…).
- 1 12-ounce package jumbo pasta shells*
- 1¼ pounds Italian turkey sausage (or Italian seasoned turkey meat)
- 1 cup bread crumbs
- 2 eggs
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 4 cups roughly chopped fresh baby spinach leaves
- 1 large (about 28 ounces) jar pasta sauce
- Preheat oven to 350?F (180?C).
- Cook pasta shells according to package directions in salted water.
- While pasta is cooking, mix the filling. In a large bowl, mix together the sausage meat, bread crumbs, egg, spinach.
- Spread a thin layer of the pasta sauce in the bottom of a large baking dish. Fill each shell with the sausage mixture (about a few tablespoons in each). Line the pan with the stuffed shells and top with remaining sauce.
- Bake for 40 - 45 minutes.
- Remove shells and allow them to cool for at about 5 - 10 minutes before serving.
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