Mini Stuffed Shells

My kind of cereal. A few weeks ago, I made two different pasta recipes. One was regular-sized stuffed shells and the other was a creamy lemon pasta dish with medium-sized shell noodles. After making and eating both the lightbulb went off in my head and I was like OMG, what if I stuffed THE SMALLER SHELLS?!?!

Usually, mini food recipes are somewhat impractical but besides being fun as hell to eat - this is actually one of the more successful mini recipes I've made, which is why it's deserving of an entire blog post! Here's why -- the ratio of shell to cheese is actually really nice with the mini version because in the regular version, there's A LOT of cheese. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes classic stuffed shells can be super heavy on the cheese since there's so much to fill, and for someone like my husband who thinks it's too much cheese and not enough pasta - the mini version is perfect.

As far as process goes, using something to assist with filling the shells helps a lot. You could use a pastry or ziplock bag and cut a hole in the bottom corner to squeeze the ricotta cheese, but I just used an old fashioned ketchup bottle with a pointy tip. Whatever works, but I def wouldn't recommend trying to free hand it!

What you need:

• 1 cup medium sized shell pasta (makes enough for 2 bowls)
• 15 oz ricotta cheese
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder or 2 minced garlic cloves
• 1 tsp fresh chopped parsley
• 1 tsp fresh chopped basil
• 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 cup of your favorite marinara sauce
• 1/4 cup of thick shredded mozzarella cheese for topping (I used Sargento it's my fave mozz for melting.)

What to do:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook about a cup of stuffed shells for as long as the packaging says.
• Prepare the filling by mixing the ricotta, garlic, parsley, basil, lemon juice, parm, salt and pep in a bowl and filling up either a pastry/ziplock bag/sauce bottle to have ready for when the shells are done.
• Fill an oven safe dish or bowl with the pasta sauce. (I used a bowl bc it would be hard to transfer and keep looking pretty into a bowl from a dish.)
• Once the pasta is done, carefully place the empty shells into the sauce one by one and then fill them one at a time.
• Next, carefully place a few thick shreds of mozzarella cheese onto each of the stuffed shells.
• Bake for 10 minutes at 350 F and then turn the broiler oven setting on for 3-5 minutes in order to melt and partially brown the mozz that's laid out on top. (Watch the entire time the broiler is on because it could burn very easily!) Serve hot.