Taco Stuffed Shells

Running out of ideas for supper?  Well, here’s a different one for you: how about combining pasta and tacos?  You can’t really go wrong there.  Here’s a recipe for taco stuffed shells – I was a little leery when I came across them on the internet (original recipe from Inspired Ginger blog), but I made them and damn they were good.  Again, they’re nowhere near healthy, but hey, if you’re reading a recipe entitled “Taco Stuffed Shells,” chances are, you’re not looking for health-food.

Ingredients:

• 1lb ground turkey (or lean beef).  1 lb of meat filled 17 shells when I made it.  So, you can be the judge if you have more folks to feed and want to make more of the meat filling. 
• 4 oz cream cheese, cubed (or Neufchatel cheese has less fat) Again, if you want to make more shells, you’ll want to increase this.  The meat/cheese filling in this recipe makes 15-18 shells, depending on how full you fill them. 
• 1 packet (1/4 cup) taco seasoning
• About 15 jumbo pasta shells
• salsa
• taco sauce
• shredded cheese (any flavor you like; we used the “Mexican Blend”)

Directions: 

1) Boil the shells in salted water until they are tender.

2) Drain them and then separate and lay them out on a cookie sheet so that they can cool

3) Preheat oven to 350 (F)

4) Brown the meet in a pan and when done, add & mix the taco seasoning. 

5) Add the cubed cream cheese to the meet and cover so that the cheese can melt.  Once it’s melted, then removed the meat/cheese mixture from the heat.

6)  In a 9×13 glass baking dish, pour taco sauce to coat the bottom of dish.

7) Fill cooked shells with about 1-2 T. of meat mixture.  Place filled taco shells into the sauce-lined baking dish and then spoon salsa over the top of the shells. Cover and bake @ 350 for 30 minutes.

8) Remove from oven, uncover, and sprinkle cheese on top, return to oven for another 15 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly. Serve with sour cream, and toppings of your choice.

Step 2

Step 7

Step 8

Enjoy!