Baked Manicotti
Delicious Italian Flavored Dish with sausage, ricotta, spinach, and other delicious ingredients piped into manicotti tubular shells and baked.
Equipment
- large mixing bowl
- 2 baking pans
- skillet
Ingredients
- 1 (8oz) box manicotti (14 tubular shells) uncooked
- 1 lb italian sausage
- 3 oz fresh spinach, or (frozen spinach thawed and drained)
- 1 cup ricotta cheese
- 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 2 tsp garlic minced
- 2 (24oz) jars pasta or marinara sauce (your favorite)
- 2 cups mozzarella cheese shredded
- 2 large eggs, beaten
Instructions
- Cook Manicotti in a large pot of boiling water seasoned with 1 1/2 TBS salt for 5 minutes. (You want the shells firm and not tender. They will finish cooking in the oven.) Drain shells and run cool water over them to stop cooking process. Lay the shells out on parchment paper or wax paper.
- In a skillet cook sausage until browned. Place cooked sausage into a large mixing bowl. Add 1 TBS cooking oil to same skillet and saute spinach with a pinch of salt until softened. Remove spinach from pan and chop. Add chopped spinach to the cooked sausage in large bowl.NOTE: if using frozen spinach, you do not need to saute it up. Just add to bowl with sausage.
- Add ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, eggs, black pepper, and garlic to bowl with sausage and spinach. Mix together until well combined.
- Into the bottom of each pan pour 1/2 of the pasta sauce. Each pan should have 12 oz of the sauce. Spread out evenly.
- Place 1/2 of the mixture into a piping bag and cut a large hole to allow mixture to pipe through. Pipe mixture into one end of the manicotti from the center to the outside edge. Turn manicotti around and fill the other end from the center to the outside edge to completely fill the manicotti shell.Place filled manicotti shell into the sauce prepared pan. Fill the rest of shells and spread out through both pans.
- Using the 2nd jar of sauce pour 1/2 over the manicotti in one pan and pour the rest of the other 1/2 over the 2nd pan of manicotti to cover.
- Sprinkle mozzarella cheese over the sauce covered manicotti.
- Cover both pans with foil tightly. (At this point you can freeze one pan if you wish.)
- Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes. Uncover pans and place back in oven for an additional 5-8 minutes.
can’t wait to try this
LOOKS AMAZING