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Thursday, January 14, 2016
No Boil Manicotti – cheese stuffed manicotti noodles baked in a quick meat sauce. No need to precook the pasta! It cooks with everything else! Manicotti, Italian sausage, spaghetti sauce, water, cottage cheese, parsley, mozzarella, parmesan, and egg. This is SO good and SOOO easy! Everyone gobbled it up! Serve with a salad and crusty garlic bread for an easy weeknight meal. #pasta #casserole #sausage #familydinner
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Pin This RecipeEasy Baked Pasta Casserole
This might be my favorite no-boil pasta dish! I love to make manicotti, but I hate to stuff the shells. They are flimsy and difficult to fill once they’ve been cooked. This No-Boil Manicotti eliminates that flimsy pasta noodle. You fill the noodles uncooked. They are super easy to fill with cheese! YAY! Since you don’t have to cook the noodles, this casserole only takes a few minutes to assemble and is ready to eat in about an hour.
How to Make No-Boil Manicotti
As I said, this casserole only takes a few minutes to assemble. Start with making the meat sauce. Brown some Italian sausage. Combine the cooked sausage with spaghetti sauce and water. Set aside. Mix together cottage cheese, mozzarella cheese, parsley, parmesan cheese, and an egg. Stuff the cheese mixture into uncooked manicotti noodles. Place the stuffed pasta in a baking dish. Top with meat sauce. Cover with foil and bake. Remove the foil, top with mozzarella cheese and bake until the cheese has melted.
- We baked the manicotti in a meat sauce. You can totally eliminate the meat from this dish if you would like. It will taste great either way.
- Can substitute ground beef, ground turkey, turkey sausage, or breakfast sausage for the Italian sausage.
- Don’t like cottage cheese? You can swap it for ricotta if you prefer.
- Feel free to add spinach to the cheese mixture.
- My favoritestore-bought spaghetti saucesare Trader Joe’s Roasted Garlic Marinara (green label), Rao’s, and La Famiglia DelGrosso.
What to Serve with Cheese Manicotti
This pasta casserole makes a lot of food. We ate the leftovers for lunch and dinner. It was just as good, if not better, reheated. Serve this with a salad and some crusty garlic bread for an easy weeknight meal! Here are a few of our favorite recipes from the blog that go great with this yummy casserole:
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Carbone’s Garlic Bread
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Creamy Italian Dressing
Creamy Italian Dressing Recipe – our favorite salad!!! Romaine, tomatoes, thinly sliced seedless cucumbers, sliced banana peppers, croutons, parmesan cheese,…
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Recipe Print Recipe
No Boil Manicotti with Meat Sauce
Author: Plain Chicken
Yield: 5 people
Prep Time 10 minutes mins
Cook Time 50 minutes mins
Total Time 1 hour hr
No-Boil Manicotti – cheese stuffed manicotti noodles baked in a quick meat sauce. No need to precook the pasta! It cooks with everything else! Manicotti, Italian sausage, spaghetti sauce, water, cottage cheese, parsley, mozzarella, parmesan, and egg. This is SO good and SOOO easy! Everyone gobbled it up! Serve with a salad and crusty garlic bread for an easy weeknight meal. #pasta #casserole #sausage #familydinner #potluck
Ingredients:
- 1 lb Italian sausage, removed from casings
- 1 (24-oz) jar spaghetti sauce
- 1½ cups water
- 1 (15-oz) container cottage cheese
- 2½ cups mozzarella cheese, divided
- ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1 Tbsp dried parsley
- 1 large egg
- 1 (8-oz) box manicotti noodles, uncooked
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350ºF. Lightly spray a 9×13-inch pan with cooking spray.
In a skillet over medium-high heat, cook the Italian sausage until no longer pink. Drain fat. Stir in spaghetti sauce and water. Remove from heat.
Combine cottage cheese, 1 cup mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, parsley, and egg. Fill uncooked manicotti noodles with the cheese mixture. Place in greased pan. Pour meat sauce over noodles. Cover with foil.
Bake for 45 to 55 minutes. Remove foil and top with remaining mozzarella cheese. Bake an additional 5 minutes to melt cheese.
Notes:
- We baked the manicotti in a meat sauce. You can totally eliminate the meat from this dish if you would like. It will taste great either way.
- Can substitute ground beef, ground turkey, turkey sausage, or breakfast sausage for the Italian sausage.
- Feel free to add spinach to the cheese mixture.
- Don’t like cottage cheese? You can swap it for ricotta if you prefer.
- My favoritestore-bought spaghetti saucesare Trader Joe’s Roasted Garlic Marinara (green label), Rao’s, and La Famiglia DelGrosso.
Plain Chicken
https://www.plainchicken.com/no-boil-manicotti/
All images and text © Plain Chicken, Inc.
Did you make this recipe?Mention @plainchicken or tag #plainchicken!
Steph
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