Get ready to tantalize your taste buds with these irresistible Ricotta and Spinach Stuffed Pasta Shells - they're absolutely scrumptious! Trust me, everyone will be begging for seconds of this mouthwatering dish.
With its delicious flavours and simple ingredients, this is definitely a dish that will quickly become a family favourite and feature regularly on your meal plans.
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The Slimming Eats Cookbook
This Ricotta and Spinach Stuffed Pasta Shells recipe is also featured on page 218 of the Slimming Eats Cookbook in the blog favourites section.
Calories in Ricotta and Spinach Stuffed Pasta Shells
These yummy stuffed pasta shells serves 4 and is 327 calories per serving.
If you're looking for more recipes within the same calorie range, you'll find an abundance of options in my dedicated collection of 300+ calorie recipes.
If you're following a calorie-controlled diet or a healthy eating plan, it's important to calculate your daily calorie intake using a reliable calorie calculator. Please note that the calorie counts provided are estimates and can vary based on specific ingredients and serving sizes. Personalizing your calculations is essential to meet your individual needs. By using a calorie calculator, you can make informed choices and stay on track with your dietary goals.
Stuffed Giant Pasta Shells with Ricotta and Spinach
I was walking around Costco last week doing the usual monthly top of things we usually grab, when a tub of Ricotta caught my eye and an instant craving for Ricotta and Spinach pasta took over.
There was already a bag of spinach in the cart, something I buy weekly as it's so handy for adding some quick speed foods to dinner whether it be pasta, curry or even breakfast, so all I needed was the pasta shells.
Jumbo Pasta Shells are perfect for stuffing with yummy fillings for amazing pasta dishes, they are large and less fiddly than the usual cannelloni tubes, although if you can't get large pasta shells, feel free to substitute with a similar pasta that can be stuffed.
Ricotta and Spinach Filling
As with any spinach dish, garlic is a must, they are just two ingredients that pair together amazingly well. I also add some onion, because well onion is delicious in whatever you are making.
It's perfect in sweet dishes as well as savoury. Have you tried some ricotta, drizzled with warmed honey and fresh fruit? HEAVENLY!!
This Ricotta and Spinach Stuffed Pasta Shells serves 4 people but I only use 3 servings of ricotta, so that we can also get in a serving of Parmesan for the top of the bake. A pasta bake dish, just needs some kind of melty cheese don't you think? and well Parmesan really packs the flavour too.
Making Spinach and Ricotta Stuffed Pasta Shells
You need to make sure you parboil the pasta until al dente before stuffing, and then it can be placed on top of that yummy tomato based sauce and sprinkled with the parmesan cheese before being baked in the oven.
For the sauce that the pasta shells sit on. I use passata, stock, onion and garlic with a little pinch of mixed herbs, simmered for about 20 minutes before adding to my Nutri Ninja Blender to blend the sauce until smooth. Any blender will do the trick, even an immersion blender if that's all you have.
I bake this Ricotta and Spinach Pasta Shells in my Le Creuset Shallow Casserole Dish, it's just the right size for arranging all the filled pasta shells and I can cover it with the lid for the first bake part, before removing to finish off. It looks super pretty too, served up in the middle of the table for everyone to dig into with a yummy side salad.
More Baked Pasta Recipes
Love baked Pasta dishes like this Ricotta and Spinach Stuffed Pasta Shells? Check out some of my other pasta bakes:
- Roasted Butternut Squash Zucchini Pasta Bake
- Sloppy Joe Pasta Bake
- Pulled Pork Pasta Bake
- Mexican Pasta Bake
- Sausage and Bean Pasta Bake
- Best Ever Bolognese Pasta Bake
- Chicken Bacon and Tomato Pasta Bake
- Chicken and Sweetcorn Lasagne
- Yummy Beef Lasagne
- Spicy Mexican Chicken Lasagne
or if you would like more recipe ideas - head on over to the FULL RECIPE INDEX where you will find over 900 delicious recipes with calories and you can search by meal type, ingredients, course, diet and more.
All recipes on Slimming Eats have estimated nutritional information for your convenience.
Sides for Pasta
There is already quite a bit of veggies s in the sauce as well as that iron-rich spinach.
I tend to go for a simple salad of baby greens, carrot, red onion and tomatoes with a light vinaigrette dressing.
- Grilled, roasted, sauteed or steam vegetables is another great option, like:
- Zucchini (courgette)
- Asparagus
- Artichokes
- Green Beans
- Peppers
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Recipe Card
Ricotta and Spinach Stuffed Pasta Shells
Everyone will love these Ricotta and Spinach Stuffed Pasta Shells – mouthwatering delicious and Slimming Friendly
Ingredients
- 8oz (230g) of fresh spinach, chopped
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 1 large egg
- 30g (1oz) of parmesan cheese, grated
- 270g (9.5oz) of ricotta
- 20 jumbo pasta shells (approx 140g), uncooked
- cooking oil spray
for the tomato sauce:
- 1 cup (240g of passata
- 1 cup (240ml) of chicken or vegetable stock
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 1 clove of garlic, crushed
- pinch of mixed herbs
- cooking oil spray
Instructions
For the tomato sauce:
- Spray a frying pan over a medium-high heat with cooking oil spray, add the onion and fry for a couple of minutes until softened.
- Add the garlic, passata, stock and pinch of mixed herbs, bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium low and simmer for about 15-20mins, until it reduces down.
- Allow to cool slightly and then add to a blender and blend until smooth, set aside.
For the stuffed pasta shells:
- Preheat oven to 180c/350f (gas mark 4)
- Spray a frying pan over a medium-high heat with cooking oil spray.
- Add the onion and garlic, season with salt and black pepper and fry for a few minutes until softened.
- Reduce heat and add the spinach and stir until wilted.
- Stir in the ricotta until all combined.
- Remove from heat and quickly stir in the egg to avoid it scrambling.
- Set the mixture aside.
- Add the jumbo pasta shells to a saucepan of boiling hot water and simmer until al dente (approx 8-10 mins)
- Drain and allow to cool slightly.
- Spread the tomato sauce across the bottom of a shallow casserole dish or oven proof dish.
- Fill the pasta shells with the ricotta and spinach mixture and arrange in the dish on top of the tomato sauce.
- Sprinkle on top with the parmesan cheese.
- Place in the oven covered and bake for 20 mins, then remove cover (or lid) and bake for an additional 10 minutes. If you prefer a more golden topping, you can finish off under the grill for a couple of minutes.
- Serve and enjoy!!
Notes
Please see below for full nutritional info and additional details about recipe:
- Calories - scroll down to nutritional info box
- WW Points and other Slimming or Weight Loss programs - due to plans regularly changing and updating, we recommend calculating with the official tools you get as a member to those plans to ensure accuracy of values.
- Vegetarian Friendly - use vegetarian friendly Italian style hard cheese or cheddar instead of the parmesan
- Suitable for Freezing ❄️
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Nutrition Information
Yield
4Serving Size
1 SERVINGAmount Per Serving Calories 327Total Fat 12gSaturated Fat 6gTrans Fat 0gCholesterol 77mgSodium 265mgCarbohydrates 32.4gFiber 4gSugar 6.6gProtein 19.2g
Nutritional information is an estimate and is to be used for informational purposes only. Ingredients can vary greatly from brand to brand and therefore it would be impossible to give accurate information.
Cleardee1 says
Delicious syn-free dish, which is very colourful and appealing in appearance! Slightly fiddly to stuff hot and slippery jumbo pasta shells but well worth the effort.
Shelley says
Made this yesterday and it was delicious. Made me feel like I was at my favourite Italian restaurant! Recipe was spot on.
Sophie says
Really tasty. Making it for the second time and have put mince in some of the shells. Can't wait, nom
Donna Swift says
Hello. Thank you for this recipe. Please could you help with how to cook this if you've frozen it? Would you defrost it before reheating and how to best reheat it? Sorry to ask so much but I am not a good cook. Thank you
Shevy (Slimming Eats) says
Fully defrost and you can either microwave till heated through or place in the oven.
dina says
I know this was asked previously but if I freeze the dish, and plan to use the oven, do I need to completely defrost and then bake it in the oven?
Thanks!
Shevy (Slimming Eats) says
I personally always defrost first before adding to oven.
SUZE says
Absolutely delicious, my husband who always likes neat loved it and had seconds, will be making this again, all my friends have asked for the recipe. I used your link to send. Thanks again, you're a star xx
Kerri says
This tasted amazing! I added a carrot to the sauce before I blitzed it for some e tra speed. I set aside a portion for lunch the next day to which I added a few cooked sliced mushrooms and some halved baby plum tomatoes before I reheated it for some extra speed. Will be making this again!!
Shevy (Slimming Eats) says
thanks for sharing your additions, sounds great.
Val says
Want to try this, but can only find full fat ricotta? Would I have to syn this? Looks lovely.
Shevy (Slimming Eats) says
Hi Val -that is fine - enjoy 🙂
Lindsey says
Hi, may be a silly question but what kind of stock do I use? Vegetable stock?
Thank you
Shevy (Slimming Eats) says
vegetable or chicken will work fine. If you are vegetarian though, you will want to use vegetable stock.
Eleenia says
Made this tonight and my son and I loved it. Thanks for a great recipe. I will make the sauce again to have with plain pasta. I used chicken stock as I am not veggie but trying to eat less meat.
Elaine says
Tried this recipe and it’s delicious. Will definitely be cooking it again. Thank you for posting it.
Angelan Delaney says
My son made this for dinner the other night and it was fantastic. Cannot wait until we have it again, which will be soon. Another amazing recipe, thank you Siobhan.
Karen says
Hi there wanting to make this later, I'm a little confused, could you tell me if this is recipe is my 2 Hea's please xx
Shevy (Slimming Eats) says
Hi Karen, no the recipe is 1 HEa per serving 🙂
Ann Field says
Can you tell me much passata and stock 1 cup is equivalent to in UK measurements please?
Shevy (Slimming Eats) says
1 cup equals 240ml - enjoy 🙂
Amy M says
This looks amazing and can't wait to try! Just a little confused with the amount of HEa's used - how many HEa's would I track per serving?
Thanks! Amy x
Shevy (Slimming Eats) says
Hi Amy, the recipe contains 4 healthy extra's, but serves 4 people, so one serving is only 1 healthy extra as you are not eating the whole recipe yourself 😉 - enjoy!!
Catherine Fox says
I made this dish and it is Amazing! Thank you so much xx
Meg says
I made this for supper last night. It was delicious. Going onto to the 'favourites' list. Thank you Sióbhan
Rachel Orton says
Is it possibly to make fuseli pasta with ricotta and then put on the tomato sauce? It's difficult to get gluten free shells. Thanks
Annie says
This was absolutely delicious. Served with steam vegetables.
Siobhan (Slimming Eats) says
So glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for leaving a comment ❤️