Four Cheese & Sausage Stuffed Shells

That’s right people, not just one cheese, not two or three. I am bringing you FOUR cheeses in this dish. If that itself doesn’t sell you, I don’t know what will.  Maybe the soft jumbo pasta shells, the savory tomato sauce and the spicy Italian sausage will do the trick. I planned on using low fat Ricotta in this dish because I’m generally not a fan of fat free cheeses, but my grocery store was out. I figured mixing it with Parmesan and low fat cottage cheese would mellow or eliminate any icky “fat free taste” and honestly, I couldn’t tell the difference. The fat free Ricotta tasted like normal Ricotta to me! This is a great dish to serve your family or to guests because it makes a lot. I plan on freezing half of my pan in individual servings to reheat on nights I don’t feel like cooking. I’ll come back in a few weeks and let you all know how it reheats!

Four Cheese & Sausage Stuffed Shells

Source: Emily Bites Original

Ingredients:
12 oz box of jumbo pasta shells (approximately 36 shells)
1 lb uncooked Italian chicken or turkey sausage, casings removed
24 oz jar of pasta sauce, divided (I used tomato basil sauce)
15 oz fat free Ricotta cheese
16 oz 1% low fat cottage cheese
½ c grated Parmesan cheese
1 T Italian seasoning
Salt, to taste
1 c shredded 2% Mozzarella cheese

Directions:
1.    Pre-heat the oven to 350. Spread ½ cup of the pasta sauce across the bottom of a 9 x 13 baking dish and set aside.
2.    Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the pasta shells according to package directions. Drain.
3.    While the water is boiling, place the uncooked sausage in a sauté pan and bring over medium-high heat. Cook meat while breaking it up with a wooden spoon until meat is browned and cooked through. Reduce heat to low and add the remainder of the pasta sauce. Stir to combine with sausage and keep on low to warm.
4.    In a large bowl, mix the ricotta cheese, cottage cheese, Parmesan cheese, Italian seasoning and salt and stir until thoroughly combined. Spoon the cheese mixture evenly into each pasta shell, placing the filled shells into the prepared baking dish. Fitting all 36 stuffed shells in the dish is a tight squeeze! Spoon the sauce and sausage over the top of the shells and spread it out evenly. Sprinkle the Mozzarella cheese over the top of the sauce.
5.    Bake for 30-35 minutes until heated through and cheese on top is melted and lightly browned.

Yields 12 (3 shell) servings. Weight Watchers Points Plus: 7 per serving (P+ calculated using the recipe builder on weightwatchers.com)
Nutrition Information per serving from myfitnesspal.com: 271 calories, 30 g carbs, 8 g fat, 22 g protein, 2 g fiber