Efrat's Notebook

Cheese-Stuffed Pasta Shells Draft

Pasta shells stuffed with a cheese mixture and baked in a tomato sauce with garlic, oregano and date syrup. A baked dairy dish I make in one pan for four.

  • Prep25 min
  • Cook45 min
  • Total1 hr 10 min
  • Makes4 servings
  • KashrutDairy

What you need

Amount:4

Tomato sauce

Cheese filling

How I make it

Pasta

  1. Cook the pasta according to the package directions, but only for about half the time, so it is not soft but not hard either.

  2. Drain the pasta, keeping 1 tablespoon of the cooking water with it so it doesn't stick.

Tomato sauce

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).

  2. In a shallow baking dish, combine the tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, date syrup and basil and mix well.

  3. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the sauce bubbles and thickens a little. Take out of the oven and let cool slightly.

Filling and baking

  1. Mix the cheese filling ingredients in a bowl.

  2. Fill each shell with about a teaspoon of the mixture.

  3. Nestle the shells into the tomato sauce.

  4. Return the dish to the hot oven (350°F / 180°C) and bake for about 25 minutes.

What I've learned

  • The pasta keeps cooking in the oven in the juices of the tomato sauce and cheese filling, so I only cook it halfway first.
  • The cheese filling may run out of the shells a little, and that's fine.
  • When I want crisp shell edges, I bake a few minutes longer, until they brown a little.

Source: ChefEf (chefef.com)