8 Cheese Manicotti!

And by Manicotti, I mean stuffed shells! (Manicotti pasta is waaaaayyyy too high maintenance for me!)

A few days ago, I had a hankering for some cheese manicotti! I moseyed my way over to allrecipes.com because, let's be honest, it is the BEST! They even let you save recipes to a recipe box! It's like a classy Pinterest slash original recipe goddess.

I doubled this recipe from the original recipe for lots of leftovers throughout the week! The original recipe had manicotti noodles (shocker right? hahaha), but I prefer those large pasta shells!

I found this awesome recipe. Also, I am too much of a free spirit to follow a recipe exactly how it's listed. Cooking is an art. Do what you think would be most delicious!

The original Manicotti recipe is here. Even though it didn't have thousands of reviews, it had a high enough rating that I decided to risk it. We were not disappointed!

8 Cheese Manicotti (Shells)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Ingredients:

1 box (12 oz box) large pasta shells

2 16 oz jars of spaghetti sauce

1 30 oz part skim ricotta cheese

8 oz Italian cheese blend (This I didn't double. 2 cups was plenty)

1.5 cups grated parmesan cheese

4 eggs

Parsley, salt, and pepper to taste
2 cups shredded Monterey jack cheese

Directions:

1. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and cook shells for 5 or 6 minutes. (You want them fairly firm so they won't get soggy after cooking. The box suggest 10-12 minutes. This is overkill.)

2. Drain shells and shock with very cold water. Let cool.

3. In a large bowl, mix together ricotta cheese, Italian cheese blend, parmesan, eggs, parsley, salt, and pepper. 

4. Pour 1 jar of pasta sauce into the bottom of the pan. (I used a large Pyrex glass dish)

5. Spoon cheese mixture (generously!) into shells. Place shells face up in pan.
6. Pour second jar of pasta sauce on top of shells.
7. Top with shredded jack cheese.
8. Cook uncovered in oven for 30 minutes or until cheese and sauce bubbles.

Overall, we will definitely have this dish over and over again! The flavors are amazing, it makes a ton for leftovers (which are better, in my opinion), and is super cheap! I spent about $15 on all ingredients. That's not too bad for a huge pan of multiple meals!

Regrets: The pasta sauce I bought had SO much sugar in it. Of all things in pasta sauce! It had about 6 grams of sugar per half cup. Yuck! I'm definintely paying attention to that next time. I've even tempted to start making my own sauce! I'm going to try this recipe.

Also, I didn't follow the "Most Helpful Positive Review" that I read that suggested adding extra spices to the cheese mixture. Definitely going to try that next time!

Anyway, this is a super simple and delicious meal I think everyone will enjoy!

Here are some unnecessary but fun pictures of the process! :)

Enjoy!




Also, here are some fun tips for allrecipes.com! :)

Because I wanted Manicotti in particular, I typed that in the search. Now, don't just go off of the first recipe you see. I typically choose a recipe by the rating and how many reviews it has. This is key. Just because something looks fantastic doesn't mean it's going to be awesome. (Sometimes I look at the top recipes of all time. Always a fun inspiration!)

HINT: Always browse over the recipe reviews just under the recipe directions.

At the top of the website, there's a handy dandy little search bar! It's so nice because you can search by a particular ingredient or just browse the top recipes. You can also do a super specific search which is super nice!

Thanks for reading! :)