This Spinach and Cheese Stuffed Manicotti is a favorite family recipe. Watch the video in the post showing you how to make manicotti, then scroll all the way to the bottom of this post and print out a clean copy of the recipe so you can make it at home.
What is Manicotti?
Manicotti is a pasta noodle shaped like a tube. It’s about 4-inches long, and 1-inch in diameter. Usually it’s boiled until al dente, then cooled, filled with some kind of cheese filling, covered with sauce and baked. In this recipe, you don’t have to bake the noodles before filling them. They’ll cook in the sauce when you bake the manicotti in the oven.
Manicotti is a dish of great comfort. It makes plenty, it’s filling, it’s completely family-friendly, and the leftovers are even better than the freshly made batch. We make this when we have a handful of friends or family around. It’s a nice, no-fuss recipe that everyone seems to love. Make it ahead, keep it in the fridge and toss it in the oven when everybody is ready to eat.
How to make Manicotti:
You’ll need the following ingredients: ricotta, Parmesan, mozzarella and cream cheeses. You’ll also need eggs, frozen spinach, manicotti noodles and marinara sauce.
The filling is very simple to make. Just mix it all up in a bowl until it’s well-blended. If you (or your kids) don’t like spinach, you can always leave it out… though I’ve found that you don’t really detect it all that much with all of the other wonderful things and sauce in the recipe.
You might consider it a good way to “sneak” some good stuff into dinner.
A layer of sauce goes into the bottom of a 13×9-inch pan.
The easiest way to stuff manicotti shells is the put the mixed filling into a plastic bag. You can use either a frosting piping bag or a gallon zip bag. Snip the corner, gather the top and squeeze the filling into the corner.
Hold an uncooked manicotti shell in your hand and squeeze the filling inside the shell. Let it overflow on both sides.
Place the filled shell into the sauce-lined pan.
Repeat with remaining manicotti and fill the pan with the stuffed shells, until you run out of shells and filling.
Cover with a generous layer of marinara sauce.
Sprinkle cheese on top. At this point, you can cover with foil, refrigerate and then bake when you’re ready. It’s ok to leave it in the refrigerator overnight.
Cover and bake for about an hour.
Pop open a bottle of red wine and eat! This Spinach and Cheese Stuffed Manicotti recipe will feed 6 or 7 hungry people- 2 stuffed shells each is plenty when served with salad and garlic bread. And lighter eaters will be plenty full with just one shell.
The Best Manicotti Recipes:
Spinach and Cheese Stuffed Manicotti
Recipe Details
Ingredients
- 15 ounces part skim ricotta cheese
- 8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
- 4 ounces cream cheese
- ½ cup shredded Parmesan cheese
- 10 ounces frozen spinach, thawed & squeezed dry
- 2 large eggs
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 box (12 to 14 shells) manicotti noodles
- 4 cups marinara sauce (jarred or homemade)
- ½ cup shredded Parmesan cheese, for topping
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350℉.
- In a large bowl, mix the cheeses, spinach, eggs, salt and pepper. Stir together until well blended.
- Place about 1½ cups of marinara sauce in a 9x13-inch pan. Spread it around to cover the bottom.
- Place the mixed filling into a plastic bag. You can use either a frosting piping bag or a gallon zip bag. Snip the corner, gather the top and squeeze the filling into the corner. Hold an uncooked manicotti shell in your hand and squeeze the filling inside the shell. Let it overflow on both sides. Alternately, you can stuff the uncooked noodles with a small spoon or fork. Place the filled shell into the sauce-lined pan. Repeat with remaining manicotti and fill the pan with the stuffed shells, until you run out of shells and filling. You should be able to fill 12 to 14 shells- if you run out of room in your pan, use a separate smaller pan to accommodate the extra.
- Cover the pasta completely with marinara sauce, using about 2½ cups of sauce. Sprinkle ½ cup Parmesan on top. At this point, you can cover with foil and refrigerate until you're ready to bake, or you can cover with foil and place it in the oven immediately.
- Bake, covered with foil, 50 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 10 minutes.
Video
Notes
- It's perfectly okay to use low fat ricotta and low fat cream cheese.
- If you don't wish to use the spinach, it's ok to leave it out and just turn this into a cheese-stuffed manicotti.
- If you don't wish to use the plastic bag method of squeezing the filling into the shells, you can use a very small spoon or fork to stuff the filling-- it will just take a bit longer and might be a little messy.
I use the recipe all the time ! We love it so much, I do add hamburger meat to my sauce and some spices to take away some sweetness for the sauce. This is one of my family favorites and my daughter loves to fill the noodles with our piping bags.
I love this recipe and it’s so easy to make. I’ve made this a few times in three months. Thanks so much!
I’ve made this recipe, as directed, many times and it is always a hit. For those concerned about the shells being undercooked, I place the shells into a 9×13 baking dish and pour hot water directly from the tap and let sit for 10-15 minutes. Then use as directed. Perfectly cooked pasta. I do this as well with my lasagna because I hate “ ready to use/no cook” lasagna sheets. Try this system and you won’t be disappointed!
This recipe was a hit. I’ve only made manicotti once and it was several years ago and really all I remember from that time was that I did have to boil the noodles before hand. Loved that this recipe called for leaving the noodles uncooked. Followed the recipe exactly except the spinach I used was fresh and cooked down, and I added half beef/half Italian sausage to the portion of sauce that went over top the noodles. It turned out super delicious, noodles perfectly cooked. Great dinner for a rainy day like today has been. Served with baguette slices toasted with herbed garlic butter. Yum!
Happy to hear- it’s one of our favorite meals!
Can fresh spinach be used instead of frozen?
I’d be wary of using fresh, just because there is a lot of moisture in fresh spinach. I suppose you could cook it and then squeeze it dry? I haven’t tried it!
very good, however I used a plastic baggie which tore, so I got the filling down to the corner on my counter and put the shell opening at my opened end and used my hand squeezing the filling into the shells. Still pretty messy but got it done..
Anyone try with gluten-free Jovial pasta? I just read through all the reviews and didn’t see anything mentioning GF pasta manicotti. My granddaughter asked for stuffed shells (Grammie Food apparently) and it’s a risk to order gran shells via Amazon b/c many arrive broken. I FINALLY found Jovial near me and Cooks Illustrated rates their pasta the highest; I use the spaghetti and think it’s excellent. Do you have an opinion on how the GF shell itself might retain its texture? I’ve tried other GF pasta baked dishes and have found they don’t hold well. That suggests I should have “dress rehearsal” and then likely prep in advance, assemble, and serve within an hour.
Any suggestions welcome. I’ll post a follow up next week. Twelve guests for dinner Saturday …
I have definitely never tried this recipe using GF pasta. Let me know if it works out though!
thank you for this recipe. I don’t like the taste of ricotta so I used a whole milk (creamy) cottage cheese. I had a piece of kielbasa that was going to go bad so I diced it up and put 1/2 in the cheese mix and the other half on top of the entire casserole just before putting in the oven. I added Italian seasoning, onion powder, garlic powder, and fennel powder ( I ground the seeds myself) to both the cheese mix and the tomato sauce. I also added roasted diced tomato and seasoned stewed tomato to the tomato sauce. I had bricks of mozzarella, Monterey jack, and parmesan that I grated myself. Wow did all that turn out great. I live alone, so, I halved your recipe. I will be freezing some for several weeks from now to enjoy again. I’ll also bring a container to my parents who are in their mid-nineties, (they look and act like they are in their early eighties). I do a lot of cooking and never tried my hand at stuffed pastas. Thank you again for this great recipe.
Can I substitute cottage cheese for ricotta cheese?
I think I’d give the cottage cheese a whir in the blender so it’s not so chunky…. but yes, I believe you can sub cottage cheese.