We had a dinner meeting at our house this past Friday night and I wanted to make something that was easy to make everything ahead and just stick it in the oven, and also easy to double for a crowd of 17 people. I immediately thought of stuffed shells and went searching for a recipe. I then remembered I had starred this recipe from Gina’s Weight Watcher Recipes. She used a meat sauce, but I went with just straight marinara.
This was so comforting and just delicious! You would never think this was a weight watcher type recipe at all! It tasted very decadent! I served them with salad and french bread. These stuffed shells are definitely a great go-to recipe and I think they would be great to freeze (prior to adding the sauce) and then bake as well. I was able to make the filling and stuff the shells ahead of time. Then a little before I needed to bake them, I made my go-to marinara sauce (semi-homemade & posted below) instead of the one she suggested and popped these babies in the oven. I highly recommend these for any dinner party!
Spinach Stuffed Shells with Marinara
Source: Gina’s Weight Watcher’s Recipes
For the Shells:
12 oz Jumbo Shells
1 tsp. Italian Seasoning
1/4 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper
2 cups part skim ricotta cheese
2 cups 2% milk reduced fat mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 egg
10 oz package frozen spinach, thawed and drained
12 oz Jumbo Shells
1 tsp. Italian Seasoning
1/4 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper
2 cups part skim ricotta cheese
2 cups 2% milk reduced fat mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 egg
10 oz package frozen spinach, thawed and drained
1/4 cup Grated Parmesan
For the Sauce:
1 28 oz. can Hunt’s Traditional Spaghetti Sauce
1 tbsp. Italian Seasoning
Directions:
Boil water and cook shells according to package directions (about 15 minutes), make sure to make them al dente.
In a large sauce pan add spaghetti sauce and italian seasoning, then simmer on low, covered for about 10 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375°.
In a large bowl, mix together ricotta, egg, spinach, mozzarella, italian seasoning, parmesan, salt & pepper.
Once shells are cooked and have cooled, fill shells with the cheese mixture and place in baking dish with a little sauce in the bottom. Cover shells with remaining sauce, cover with foil and bake 40 minutes, uncover foil and bake 5 more minutes.
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This looks wonderful and I love making stuffed shells. For me, they always taste better the day after!
These look so yummy! And even better that they are WW!
These look great, I’ve never tried spinach in my stuffed shells!
I love the spinach in the ricotta -it’s so colorful and healthy! Stuffed shells are such a great dish to take to a potluck or new mom
I am done with school now so I just printed out about 11 recipes from your blog to start making. This one is first on my list. It looks wonderful!
I made this last week and it was wonderful! Tomorrow night I am making your recipe for turkey pot stickers. I’m very excited about it! Missed you this morning.
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