One of my early inventions as a recipe artist. I wanted to make this, and found something similar that I adapted a bit to include the ingredients I wanted. This is one of those feed your family with goodness type meals – something you might make and bring over to a friend who’s family needs a meal. You know what I’m saying.
Let’s talk chicken and spinach: 1… I don’t do frozen spinach period. 2… I don’t like stems in my spinach so I take the extra 20 minutes to remove them one by one. 3… My chicken is great. Here’s what I did:
Take about a 1.25 lbs or two halves of boneless skinless chicken breast. Give them a quick rinse and pat them dry with paper towel. Place in roasting pan and coat with olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper.
I covered my roasting pan with aluminum foil to seal in the steam. Bake at 400 F for about 30 minutes. Take it out and leave the foil and just let it cool slowly. After a while when it’s cool chop it all up.
Now here’s a little trick. There’s a whole lot of juice in the roasting pan when you’re done, so why not add that back to the chopped chicken. That’s what I did.
For the spinach, we of course removed the stems because everyone knows those are gross, right?
We give them a rough chop and now we’re ready to cook it. Start out with some olive oil in a decently sized pan. Saute the onion for about 5 minutes until soft. Add more olive oil if necessary if things get dry. Next add about a tablespoon or so of garlic. Let that get fragrant for a minute or two. Now we add the spinach. Let it wilt down and develop a nice dark color.
So now we have chicken and spinach. Combine those with 1 egg (beaten), bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, ricotta, basil, salt, and pepper. You are now ready to fill your shells.
Cook the pasta to al dente as per the inst ructions on the box. Grab a 9×13 baking dish or two and layer the bottom with your favorite marinara sauce. Stuff your shells and arrange them on the sauce. Top with another layer of sauce. Bake covered for 30 minutes. Uncover, add cheese, and bake 10 more minutes.
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 12 oz package Jumbo Shells pasta
- 2 TB extra virgin olive oil
- 1 cup yellow onion (finely chopped)
- 1-1.25 lb boneless skinless chicken breast or about 2.5 cups rotisserie chicken
- 1 TB minced garlic
- 1 egg, beaten
- 15 oz ricotta cheese
- 10 oz chopped fresh spinach (stems removed)
- 1/2 cup shredded Italian 5 cheese blend (or grated Parmesan cheese)
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 TB chopped fresh basil or 1 tsp dried
- 1/4 cup plain breadcrumbs
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 30 – 40 oz Marinara Sauce
DIRECTIONS:
- Boil water, add salt. Cook pasta shells according to package directions. Drain. Do not rinse. Set aside.
- Heat 1-2 TB olive oil in large skillet. Cook onion until soft (about 5 minutes). Add additional tablespoon olive oil if necessary, add garlic and saute until fragrant – about 1 minute. Add chopped spinach and saute until darkened, wilted and soft – about 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat, set aside.
- Rinse chicken breasts. Pat dry with paper towel. Add to roasting pan (I used the same 9×13 pan I later cooked the shells in). Coat in olive oil, salt and pepper on both sides. Cover pan tightly with aluminum foil. Bake at 400 F for 30 minutes. Remove from over and let cool covered. Chop chicken finely then add juices from roasting pan back to chopped chicken. Yields about 2 1/2 cups. Or use 2.5 cups chopped rotisserie chicken.
- Beat egg and combine with spinach mixture, chicken, ricotta, 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, basil, salt and pepper.
- Layer bottom of 9×13 roasting pan with marinara sauce. Add more sauce to taste on bottom because diners will probably want more to top on the shells after they cook.
- Stuff each shell and place in pan on top of sauce. Add more sauce on top of each shell. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake at 375 F for 30 minutes. Uncover and top with 1/2 cup cheese (shredded Italian or Parmesan) . Bake uncovered for another 10 minutes.
