These ground turkey stuffed shells are my most popular recipe of all time! Large pasta shells stuffed to the brim with ground turkey and cheese and covered with tomato sauce and yes, even more cheese.
I wanted to make stuffed shells, and it needed to be with whatever was lying around the apartment – so I ended up with ground turkey stuffed shells, and I thought they were really good!
Substitutions
- Feel free to substitute the ground turkey for beef or chicken. Or you can remove the meat altogether and add spinach instead. Not gonna lie, sometimes I like the vegetarian way even better.
- If you don’t have garlic cloves, you can substitute any of the below:
- 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
- You don’t have to use reduced fat ricotta or 2% mozzarella, it just helps cut down on the calorie count a little. You can use the full milk version of each and it’ll be faaaaabulous.
How to video with step by step instructions
Apologies for the quality of the photos in this video, but I haven’t had a chance to get new ones since I originally made this recipe. Lots of people requested a step by step tutorial, and I thought this would be an easy way to show you how they’re made:
Side of bread, coming right up
- Copycat Olive Garden Breadsticks by Lil Luna
- Individual Garlic Cheese Breads by Cafe Delites
- Roasted Garlic Rosemary Focaccia Bread by Little Spice Jar
- Cheesy Garlic Bombs by Damn Delicious
- Pull Apart Garlic Bread by Gather for Bread
More cheesy pasta recipes, please!
I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as too much pasta or cheese (shhhhhhh), so if you need more cheesy pasta dishes in your life, look no further:
- Baked Mac and Cheese
- Cheesy Sausage and Peppers Pasta Bake by Hunger Thirst Play
- Veggie Lasagna Rollups
- Buffalo Chicken Cheesy Penne by Whitney Bond
- Ramen “Spaghetti” Bake
- Taco Pasta Casserole by Mighty Mrs.
- Ground Turkey Baked Rigatoni
- One Pot Garlic Parmesan Pasta by The Cozy Cook
Ground Turkey Stuffed Shells
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 16 shells 1x
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Description
My most popular recipe of all time! Large pasta shells stuffed to the brim with ground turkey and cheese and covered with tomato sauce and yes, even more cheese!
Scale
Ingredients
- 16 jumbo pasta shells
- 1 pound lean ground turkey
- 1 jar spaghetti sauce (choose your favorite!)
- 1 clove garlic, chopped
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup parsley, chopped
- 8 ounces reduced fat ricotta cheese
- 8 ounces shredded 2% mozzarella cheese, divided
- 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat over to 350°F. Spray an 8×8 glass dish with non-stick spray and set aside.
- While that’s warming up, cook pasta al dente according to the directions on the box. Once cooked, set aside to cool.
- Brown ground turkey, adding in chopped garlic.
Note: If you don’t have garlic cloves, you can substitute: 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic,
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder, or 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt. - Cover the bottom of the baking dish with half the spaghetti sauce. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, lightly beat one egg. Add the ground turkey mix, ricotta cheese, half the mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, and parsley. Add a little salt and pepper if you’d like, and mix well.
- Using a spoon, stuff each shell with the mixture you’ve created. It can be kind of tricky, depending on how “curly” your noodles are, but I promise it’s worth it. I usually spoon mixture up under one of the curves and then fill the rest – it seems to be the easiest.
- As you’re stuffing the shells, place each shell in the glass baking dish. Place them closely together so they don’t tip over and cram as many as you can into the pan.
- Pour the remaining spaghetti sauce over the shells, then cover in the remaining mozzarella cheese.
- Bake at 350°F for 20-25 minutes (or until the cheese is bubbling on the top).
- Serve with a side of garlic bread and enjoy!
- Category: Entree
- Method: Bake
Keywords: stuffed shells, ground turkey stuffed shells, pasta, cheese, dinner
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Anonymous says
May 2, 2013 at 4:49 PM3) Cover the bottom of an 8×8 baking dish with half the spaghetti sauce. Set aside (read: put it in a timeout).
What was this sauce used for? It doesn’t appear that the shells were baked in this dish…thanks!
Leslie Haasch says
May 2, 2013 at 4:58 PMThey actually were, but I ran out of sauce so I only had about 1/4 of what I needed and you can barely see it in the pictures 🙂 It’s just to keep the shells from sticking to the pan, while adding a bit more flavor than if you were to just spray the pan with non-stick spray. You could also use butter instead!
Anonymous says
May 3, 2013 at 1:58 PMThanks, look forward to trying this tonight.
Anonymous says
August 29, 2013 at 12:29 AMThank you for the recipe! Will definitely make this again! Made this tonight, and it was delicious! The hubby loved it too which is always a plus. I did make a couple of small changes though – I added chopped fresh spinach, and I substituted cottage cheese for the ricotta. It turned out really well.
Leslie Haasch says
August 30, 2013 at 12:40 PMThat sounds delicious – glad you enjoyed it!
Claire Bear says
August 31, 2013 at 3:56 AMYum did this tonight except with ground beef really good!! Used nice Italian shredded cheese and broiled till it was golden brown and bubbly! Hubby loved it :> thank you
Claire Bear says
August 31, 2013 at 3:57 AMYum did this tonight except with ground beef really good!! Used nice Italian shredded cheese and broiled till it was golden brown and bubbly! Hubby loved it :> thank you
Leslie Haasch says
September 23, 2013 at 12:26 PMThat sounds great – glad you enjoyed it!
Anonymous says
January 23, 2014 at 2:51 AMWow! I just made these with only mozzarella, but I added three carrots to the sauce and four cloves of garlic mixed in with the turkey. It was life changing! I’ll make this weekly. Thanks 🙂
Leslie Haasch says
January 23, 2014 at 8:22 PMOo that sounds great – I’ll have to try that!
rachel ward says
May 2, 2014 at 9:42 PMJust made this for dinner. I used 2% small curd cottage cheese instead of the ricotta and sliced parmesan instead of grated. I also added chopped fresh spinach to the mixture. Very delicious! Will be adding this to the recipe book for sure!
Leslie Haasch says
May 8, 2014 at 1:28 PMMmm sounds delicious – glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
jarrod ellis says
July 6, 2016 at 10:10 PMMade it for the family tonightcand they loved it. Used ground turkey instead of ground beef use shredded mozzarella cheese and ricotta cheese and shredded parmesan cheese and fresh spinach. Mmmm good????????????????????????
Alesia says
May 19, 2017 at 8:23 PMI added fresh spinach to a pan with diced onions and minced garlic. Added that mixture to thw cheese and ground turkey. Got a store brought sauce that was tomatoe basil. Everything was delish! I would have never thought to add an egg …actually made stuff shells a couple of times before and never added an egg oops. I will be making this here recipe from now on. Thanks!
Leslie Haasch says
May 20, 2017 at 3:58 PMSo glad that you liked it!
K says
December 11, 2017 at 8:33 PMMade this tonight but didn’t have ricotta and was low on mozzarella. Melted cream cheese, 1/4 cup mozzarella, 1/4 cup Romano, some milk, and added red pepper flakes and garlic to make a cheese sauce. Mixed that with the turkey before stuffing and it was amazing! Thanks for this recipe!
Leslie Haasch says
December 13, 2017 at 12:46 PMSounds like you did a great job with the substitutions!
Anonymous says
August 22, 2018 at 8:59 PMUsed 3 cloves garlic and 1/4 of an onion in with the turkey while browning.
Also fished into the shells using tongs. Was very easy to get under both sides of the shell, even on the curlier ones!
Anonymous says
August 22, 2018 at 9:00 PM** Dished into the shells. Sorry.