This is a sponsored post. My opinions, as always, are my own.
Well my friends – Ol’ Man Winter has finally arrived. With winter, cue the baked pastas, the homey stews and the braised dishes. Break out the slow cookers, the dutch ovens and bring on the comfort food. Philly got walloped with a ton of snow and, to quote my buddy Rossi – those weather forecasters were WAY off – an inch or so of “wintery mix” – yeah right. Let’s look out the window and get the accurate forecast shall we? I decided it was a hunker down day and decided to play in the kitchen. With the holidays coming up, one tradition we tend to do is whip up a dish that can be baked or simmered away and often for Christmas Eve, it means a baked pasta. One thing I love to order from time to time is stuffed shells but to make them myself – I tended to rationalize that it was too laborious. However, the takeout version always seemed to come with a side of grease and sauce that was so-so. Who wants that? So, with the snow cascading in front of the windows, I decided that there was no time like the present and this stuffed shell recipe resulted in clean plates all around. This pasta sauce recipe is so full of flavor – easy to make with Contadina crushed tomatoes and their flavorful tomato paste. If you have any extra tomato paste left over – just pop it in a plastic ziplock bag and keep in the freezer – that way you just use what you need. No waste – no fuss. The key to the sauce besides the Italian sausage – the grated onion. It just melts into the sauce. This recipe does make a lot – I had a few extra shells and leftover filling so I made an extra 8×8 and it’s all ready in the freezer for a quick weeknight meal. Give this recipe a whirl and forget about ever ordering stuffed shells from takeout again!
On to the Recipe:
Gather the ingredients
Grated onion melts into the sauce
Adding the crushed tomatoes
Time to simmer the sauce
Making the filling
Shells stuffed and ready for a cheesy sauna
Ready to bake
Now – doesn’t this look like a bite of comfort?
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Contadina went into some {not so} famous kitchens to see how they cook. Check out how “Meg Ryan” makes her tomato sauce – it’s definitely going to make you “want what she’s having”.
