I know spaghetti sauce is primarily made from tomatoes, but when I look at sauce recipes for spaghetti, I sometimes start to think about meat.  Sure, if you go looking for sauce recipes for spaghetti and find a good recipe for Sunday gravy, you’ll see that sauce has meat, but it also has a multi-hour cook time and may included ingredients like a whole braciole.

I love braciole, but that doesn’t mean I want to make one on a Tuesday night for dinner.  Still, in the realm of sauce recipes for spaghetti, I bet we can find something that is still pretty quick and still incorporates centuries of Italian meat production.  In the end, we’ll have one of those sauce recipes for spaghetti you keep going back to over and over again.

You will need:

• 1/2 pound Italian sausage
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, sliced
• 4 cloves garlic
• Salt and pepper
• 1/4 pound Prosciutto, roughly chopped
• 1/2 pound pancetta, diced
• 1 pound ground hamburger
• 2 tablespoons oregano
• 28 ounces crushed San Marzano tomato
• 8 leaves basil, sliced thin

Enjoy!

Image by Abdulmajeed Hassan from Pixabay

I’m always surprised when looking at sauce recipes for spaghetti how simple arrabiata sauce is to make.  I want it to be complex with lots of ingredients and super difficult to make because that’s how it tastes: complex, rich, and extra fancy.

But it’s not.   As far as sauce recipes for spaghetti go, this one is pretty simple.  Like really simple.  Like if you can saute onions, you can make this sauce simple.  Where it really stands apart, though, is in the liberal use of red pepper flake, which gives it its angry Italian name.

Anyway, I encourage you to give this sauce a try while adjusting the red pepper flake to your personal preference.  If you want it less spicy, make it less spicy.  If you like the heat, leave it as is.  Either way, give it a shot and really master this sauce.  It’s an amazing palette on which you can try other sauce recipes for spaghetti.

Want a rose sauce?  Add cream.  Want a vodka sauce, add a little vodka and a little cream.  Want to add bacon?  Of course, you do.  It’s bacon.  Just fry some up and add it.  Whatever you do, just enjoy it!

You will need:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil (preferably Italian olive oil)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion, diced
• Salt
• 2 teaspoons red pepper flakes
• 1/2 cup red wine (optional)
• 2 cans San Marzano plum tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 8 leaves fresh Basil, sliced thin

1. Set the pot you will make the sauce in over medium heat.
2. Add the olive oil and let it get hot.  Then saute the garlic for 30 seconds.
3. Add the onions with a healthy pinch of salt and let them cook until they brown, stirring occasionally.  This will take 10-12 minutes.
4. Add the red pepper flake and let it cook about 15 seconds.
5. Pour in the red wine and bring it to a boil.  Make sure the steam from the wine no longer has a strong alcohol smell.
6. Add the tomatoes and let them start to bubble.
7. Stir in the sugar and basil.
8. Serve over pasta!

Enjoy!

Image by bobbymp from Pixabay

When creating recipes for stuffed shells, we added fancy ingredients like shellfish.  Then we had recipes for stuffed shells that were full of cheese.  Then I went a little wild and shared a recipe for stuffed shells that was inspired by Mexican stewed meat.  Still, I think it’s critical that we go back near the basics and do something a little more typical while still seeing if we can’t gild the lily a little bit.

Thus we have the three meat stuffed shells.  This recipe is a lot like more basic recipes for stuffed shells, but we try to keep things elevated by adding extra meat.  Generally, we find that extra meat is never a bad thing.  No meat eater ever complains that there’s more meat and, believe me, extra meat means extra flavor.

You will need:

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• Salt and pepper
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 pound Italian sausage
• 1/2 pound breakfast sausage
• 1/2 pound ground pork
• 4 cups ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• 6 ounces frozen spinach, cooked
• 1 box pasta shells
• Cooking spray
• 3 cups spaghetti sauce (homemade or jarred)
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella

1. Pour the olive oil into a skillet over medium-high heat and let it get hot.
2. Add the onion, with a healthy pinch of salt and pepper and saute for 60 seconds.
3. Add the garlic and cook with the onions for eight minutes, stirring regularly.
4. Add the three meats and cook until all traces of pink are gone.
5. Pour into a bowl and mix in the ricotta, Parmesan cheese, and spinach until well incorporated.
6. Preheat oven to 350.
7. Prepare the pasta shells according to package directions then fill with two tablespoons of meat mixture.
8. Add each filled shell to a baking sheet lined with cooking spray.
9. Once all shells are filled, cover with spaghetti sauce and shredded cheese.
10. Bake for 15 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the spaghetti sauce is bubbly.

Enjoy!

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

As a child of the 1980s, I grew up knowing certain things: Megatron had to be stopped no matter the cost.  Zack Morris could not be trusted.  If one were to be gagged, it should be with a spoon.  I was also taught by cartoons that anchovies were evil and should never be eaten.  They should definitely never appear in sauce recipes for spaghetti, pizza or anything else.  Ever.

As an adult, though, I have to admit that anchovies aren’t bad.  While I would never put them on a pizza or anything like that, I do like hiding them in olive oil-based sauce recipes for spaghetti because I think they bring an umami saltiness you don’t get from anything else.  I know it sounds weird, but try this puttanesca-inspired sauce recipe for spaghetti and let me know what you think about anchovies.

You will need:

• 6 tablespoons olive oil (not-extra virgin if possible)
• 3 anchovy filets
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1/2 cup sliced olives (black, green, kalamata or a combination)
• 2 tomato, roughly chopped
• Salt and pepper
• 1 tablespoon capers
• 4 cups cooked spaghetti
• 4 tablespoons olive oil (extra virgin if possible)

1. Pour the non-extra virgin olive oil into a skillet over medium-high heat.  We want to use non-extra virgin olive oil so that it does not burn. If you only have extra virgin olive oil, try setting your heat to medium.
2. Once the oil is hot, add the filets and break them up with your wooden spoon, spatula, etc. and the garlic.
3. The filets will dissolve after a few minutes of cooking, then add the olives, tomatoes, and a healthy pinch of salt and pepper.
4. Cook the tomatoes until they are just warm.  You want big chunks of tomato.  You are not looking for marinara.
5. Stir in the pasta, letting the sauce coat it.
6. Add the capers and let them get warm, then add as much of the extra virgin olive as you want for flavor and to make sure the sauce is as wet as you want.
7. Optionally cover with Parmesan cheese.

Enjoy!

My son is older now, so society as a whole may have moved past needed to hide vegetables in other things. Still, in my day, a little bit of trickery was the only way my son got something green down his gullet. Granted, we were lucky that he would eat oregano and basil, just not anything else green, so we could manage to be a little sneaky.

All of this is to say that if you’re looking through sauce recipes for spaghetti with an eye towards being healthy, give this one a try. You can make it by sautéing a lot of vegetables and then blending them with your tomato sauce to create a thick, rich sauce that will add a few nutrients along the way. If this works, let us know. We can create more sauce recipes for spaghetti the blend in hidden vegetables and only we shall know.

You will need:

• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 onion, diced
• Salt and pepper
• 2 cups of cauliflower, roughly chopped
• 3 stalks celery, sliced
• 1 red pepper, roughly chopped
• 1 cup spinach, finely sliced
• 4 strips bacon, chopped
• 1 28 ounce can of tomato sauce
• 2 tablespoons oregano
• 1 tablespoon basil

1. In a skillet over medium-high heat, add the olive oil. When hot, add the garlic.
2. Cook the garlic for 30 seconds and then add the onion and healthy pinches of salt and pepper.
3. Cook the onion until it’s very brown (not burnt.)
4. Add the rest of the vegetables with more salt and pepper.
5. Cook the vegetables for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally so they soften.
6. Pour the entire vegetable mixture into a food processor and pulse until smooth.
7. In the pot you cook your sauce, add the bacon and saute until crisp over medium heat.
8. Add the vegetables back and let them get hot.
9. Add the tomato sauce and herbs.
10. Cook until the sauce is bubbling. Check for salt and serve.

Enjoy!

I’ve spent far too long thinking about recipes with stuffed shells. Still, it was something that people said they wanted and who am I to argue?

Still, as I was contemplating stuffed shells, I could help but wonder if there was a way to do dessert recipes with stuffed shells. To be honest, I’ve never had much luck with dessert and pasta. Especially pasta with the thickness of a stuffed shell.

However, the idea of a sweeter recipe with stuffed shells wouldn’t leave my mind so easily. So, I started thinking about how to add a hint of sweetness without making dessert and it was not too long until I remembered sausage and apples are like best friends in the culinary world. I didn’t want to stop there, though, so I added a little cheddar cheese for the bite and now we have sausage, cheddar and apple stuffed shells.

You will need:

• 1 box of stuffed shells, prepared according to package directions
• 1/2 pound breakfast sausage (I would not use Italian sausage for this dish)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup apples, diced (Gala apples or Honeycrisp work best)
• 6 ounces cream cheese
• 1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• Paprika for some color

Normally when making stuffed shells, I prefer to cook the pasta in very salty water. In this case, I’m not so concerned about the “very” part. You want to use some salt, but you don’t have to use as much as normal. This is because salty shells will overwhelm the apple.

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. In a skillet over medium-high heat, cook the sausage until just brown. Remove.
3. There should be some sausage fat in the skillet. If not, you may need to add a tablespoon of olive or vegetable oil.
4. Add the garlic and cook 30 seconds.
5. Add the apples and cook until they just start to brown, maybe 1-2 minutes at most.
6. Remove the skillet from the heat and add the sausage back in with the cream cheese and cheddar cheese. Stir to mix the ingredients.
7. Fill the shells with your mixture and place them in a baking dish greased with butter.
8. Mix the heavy cream, garlic powder and white pepper, then pour over the shells.
9. Top with Paprika.
10. Bake until the cream thickens, about 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Five Ingredient Stuffed Shells

Well, when designing recipes for stuffed shells, I kind of went overboard with my Chile Colorado-inspired chicken stuffed shells. For this recipe for stuffed shells, I wanted to do the opposite and see if I could produce a recipe for stuffed shells with as few ingredients as possible. Five seemed like a good number and, after seeing the results, I think it turned out pretty well!

By the way, we’re not counting water as an ingredient since it doesn’t make it into the final product. Plus, it’s my blog so I can cheat however I want!!

You will need:

• 1 box of stuffed shells
• Salt
• 2 bricks cream cheese
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups heavy cream

(See, that’s no so bad, is it?)

By the way, if I could have had six ingredients, I’d top the shells with some shredded mozzarella cheese. If I had seven ingredients, I would definitely want some white pepper in both the sauce and the cream cheese mix. And if I could have eight ingredients, some cooking spray to grease the baking dish, but I’m a man of my word.

1. Prepare the stuffed shells according to package directions. If the package directions, don’t specify boiling the shells in salty water, boil them in salty water!
2. While the stuffed shells are boiling, combine 1.5 boxes of cream cheese with 3 cloves of garlic.
3. Fill the shells with cream cheese when they are done cooking.
4. Also, in a sauce pan over medium heat, bring the cream to a simmer with the other two cloves of garlic.
5. When the sauce just starts to simmer, mix in the rest of the cream cheese to thicken the sauce slightly.
6. Preheat oven to 350.
7. Finally, pour about a third of the sauce into the baking dish. Layer the shells on top of the sauce.
8. Liberally coat the shells with the rest of the sauce and bake until warm.

Enjoy!

Chile Colorado-inspired chicken stuffed shells

As you’re perusing recipes for stuffed shells, you’re going to find some really great Italian-based recipes and those recipes for stuffed shells are fantastic. However, we believe that there is more one can do with the stuffed shell than the classic approach (not that we don’t love the classic Italian approach.) Still, sometimes we want variety and so we took the stuffed shell and took it South of the border to try something a little different.
This recipe for stuffed shells is completely inspired by our love of chili Colorado, which is beef stewed in a smoked chili sauce. In the Blog Well Done household, chili Colorado is our quicker, less ingredient intensive version of mole that we like just as well. Still, we thought beef might overwhelm the flavor of the shell, so we opted for chicken, but kept the chili sauce.
Does that sound like a recipe for stuffed shells you might like?

You will need:
• 2 cups chicken broth or water
• 2 onion, sliced
• 5 cloves garlic, halved
• Salt and pepper
• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• Cooking spray
• 4 ancho chilies
• 4 guajillo chilies
• 1 can of chipotles in adobo sauce
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano, preferably dried Mexican oregano
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce
• 1 box of stuffed shells
• 1 package of cream cheese
• 3 cups of cheddar cheese

This recipe for stuffed shells suggests that you brine your chicken for an hour or up to a day. If you don’t have time for that, you can skip it and go right to cooking the chicken.

1. To prepare the brine, pour 2 cups of broth or water into a large bowl with a lid or a freezer bag. Add 1 onion, 3 cloves of garlic, 1/2 cup salt and pepper to taste. Put the chicken in the bowl and let it sit for as little as an hour or as much as 24 hours.
2. Preheat oven to 350.
3. Pat the chicken dry. Cover liberally with salt and pepper and place on a baking sheet covered in cooking spray.
4. Bake the chicken for 22 minutes.
5. While the chicken is cooking, bring a saucepan of water to boil.
6. Once boiling, kill the heat and add the dried chilies. Let them rehydrate for about 10 minutes.
7. Remove from the water and put the chilies in a food processor with the other onion, the rest of the garlic, 1 chipotle, 2 tablespoons of adobo and the oregano.
8. Blend until smooth. If the sauce is too thick, add a little water from the chilies.
9. Pour the sauce into a bowl.
10. Put the chicken into the food processor and use it to shred the chicken.
11. Finally, cook the shells according to package directions.
12. Preheat oven to 350.
13. While the shells are cooking, mix the cream cheese, one cup of cheddar cheese and chicken together.
14. Spray a baking dish with cooking spray, then fill the finished shells with the cream cheese mixture.
15. Place the shells on the baking dish, then pour in the sauce.
16. Finally, top with the rest of the cheese and bake until the cheese is melted.

Enjoy!

Cooking Italian sausage in the oven

If you’ve ever been to Jasper’s in Kansas City and had one of their grilled Italian sausage sandwiches, you may be asking yourself why anyone would want to cook Italian sausages in the oven. While there is something to flame kissing an Italian sausage, I kind of prefer cooking Italian sausages in the oven. For my money, cooking Italian sausages in the oven is faster, there’s less clean up than cooking Italian sausages on the grill, and they still taste delicious.
Of course, like with most things, there’s an art to cooking Italian sausage in the oven and a method that will get you better results every time. Of course, that method takes longer than just cooking the Italian sausages in the oven, so we’ll talk both methods.

Cooking Italian sausages in the oven

You will need:

• 8 Italian sausages
• Enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of baking dish
• Salt and pepper to taste

Italian sausage method #1: Quick and tasty

1. Preheat your oven to 350.
2. Grease the bottom of a baking dish with the vegetable oil and arrange the sausages so that they don’t touch.
3. Use a sharp knife to cut small holes in the top only of the sausage.
4. Sprinkle with salt and liberally coat with black pepper
5. Bake until the sausage is cooked all the way through, about 12-15 minutes.

Note: In case you are wondering, normally you would want to pair Italian (olive) oil with Italian sausages, but I prefer vegetable oil in this case because it won’t burn.

Italian sausage method #2: More steps, but tasty

1. Preheat your oven to 450.
2. Grease the baking dish with a thin layer of vegetable oil.
3. Put the baking dish into the oven and let it get very hot for 10 minutes.
4. While the baking dish is charging, use a sharp knife to cut small holes in the top only of the sausages.
5. Sprinkle both sides with salt and liberally cover with black pepper.
6. After ten minutes, use an oven mitt or hot pan holder to open the oven and pull out the dish.
7. Arrange the Italian sausages cut side down and cook for one minute. This should give you similar browning to a grill.
8. Flip the sausages and reduce the heat to 350.
9. Cook for 12 minutes or until done all the way through.

Slap on a bun, toss into a sauce or eat as is. Whatever you do, enjoy!