Cheese Stuffed Shells

I made an Amazon purchase of the Tinkyada brown rice pasta Grand Shells and I was dying to make stuffed shells. Seeing as how I had 12 boxes I needed to start baking. I finally had time to put these together and they don’t take too long, plus you can make them ahead of time, so hopefully I will motivate myself to make these a bit more often. The shells were great, I had no problems while filling them and they didn’t fall apart at all. I was really happy with this dish though the final product didn’t allow for a very good picture, trust me it tastes great. Hubby loved this dish and commented on it for days, that’s in part to us having so much leftover but even after eating it for a week straight during lunch Hubby still loved it. This dish makes a lot so you can easily split this recipe in two and freeze half for later.

Gluten Free Cheese Stuffed Shells
Adapted from All Recipes

12 oz GF jumbo pasta shells, this is 1.5 packages of the Tinkyada Grand Shells
2 eggs beaten
32 oz cottage cheese
1 pound mozzarella cheese, shredded
8 oz parmesan cheese, grated (fresh is the best here)
1 T dried parsley
2 t salt
1 t black pepper
2 (28 oz each) jars spaghetti sauce
8 oz mushrooms, sliced
1 pound buffalo burger, or whatever you have on hand

In a large bowl mix the eggs, cottage cheese, half of the mozzarella, half of the parmesan, parsley, salt and pepper until combined. Place in the refrigerator while you boil the pasta, this will make the filling more firm and make it easier to stuff the shells.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Bring a large pot of water to a boil then add 1T salt and olive oil along with the pasta. Cook for about 17 minutes then rinse under cold water and drain well on paper towels.

Brown the burger while boiling the pasta and add the two jars of spaghetti sauce and mushrooms to mix evenly. Put a layer of the sauce mixture on the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish to keep the shells from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Fill the shells with the cheese mixture and place each shell open side up into the baking dish. I took a Ziploc bag and filled it with the cheese mixture, cut one corner off and used that to pipe the mixture into the shells, it worked great and was fast. After all the shells are filled top with the remaining pasta sauce mixture and then top with the remaining mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Cover with foil and bake for 45-60 minutes or until the edges are bubbly. Take the foil off for the last 10 minutes of baking.

You can get these shells for a decent price on Amazon and with free shipping it makes it even better. The cost ranges from $3.00-$3.50 per box depending on if you can catch a sale.