Sausage and Spinach Stuffed Shells

Okay, sausage is a bit of a weakness of mine.  I hate how much I like it because it's not exactly the healthiest of the healthy.  While I'm nothing even close to a health food nut, I still notice when I'm eating one of the worst meats for you.  Oh well.  As long as I'm not eating sausage too often, I'm going to make sure to enjoy it every now and then!  Here's a recipe using sausage that I adore:

Stuffed Shells with Sausage and Spinach

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Author: Joanne

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 35 mins

Total time: 40 mins

Serves: 4

The filling for these stuffed shells are not too gooey or soft, so not only do they make for an excellent dinner served with a salad on the side, they double as finger food for your next party. Substitute pork sausage for chicken sausage, just add a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan before adding the chicken sausage so it does not stick to the pan.

Ingredients

• 16-18 jumbo pasta shells
• 1 pound fresh pork sausage links, casing removed
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 1 cup frozen spinach, thawed and squeeze dry
• 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• salt and freshly ground pepper

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and fill a large bowl with cold water and ice, set aside. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta shells and cook according to package directions. Drain well then add to ice water until ready to stuff.
2. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add pork sausage then use a wooden spoon to break up the sausage, cook 5-6 minutes until browned.
3. Add garlic and cook 30 seconds then add tomatoes and spinach (make sure the thawed frozen spinach has been squeezed dry); cook 1 minute. Remove pan from heat and stir in ricotta cheese.
4. Using a spoon, fill pasta shells with pork filling and arrange in a baking dish (9-inch x 9-inch baking dish works well). Sprinkle tops with shredded cheese then bake in the oven 25-30 minutes until cheese has melted and tips of shells begin to crisp and brown.

I couldn't find ricotta cheese anywhere in the grocery store, so I substituted more mozzarella cheese instead.  And these were so good!!  The spinach even made me feel slightly less guilty about eating them.  :-)  It's one of my new favorite recipes using sausage.  They were even good the next day.  If you like sausage, I highly recommend this recipe.

If you don't want to serve this as a main dish but want to try it, you could definitely serve it as an appetizer for a bunch of people, or freeze half of them and use them later.