Easy Cheese Manicotti

Ingredients for Cheese Manicotti

This easy cheesy manicotti comes together with simple ingredients – nothing fancy or hard to find And the best part: you don’t need to cook manicotti shells ahead of time. Here’s all you need: A package of uncooked manicotti pasta, your favorite spaghetti sauce, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, an egg, and some simple seasonings. The seasonings we use in this recipe are basil, parsley flakes, salt, and pepper.

How to Make Cheese Manicotti

1. First, prepare the baking pan. Once the oven is preheating, spread about ½ cup of your favorite spaghetti sauce on the bottom of a 9×13 pan. I highly recommend our Homemade Spaghetti Sauce with Fresh Tomatoes. This prevents the manicotti from sticking to the bottom of the pan as it bakes.
2. Next, make the filling. In a mixing bowl, combine the cheeses, egg, and spices. I like to mix the egg in a small bowl before adding it to the cheese to make sure the whites and yolk are evenly disbursed through the mixture. The egg is the binder that will hold the other ingredients together inside the shell.
3. Fill the manicotti shells. This is the fun part! To keep mess to a minimum there’s a super easy way to get all that cheesy goodness in the manicotti shells. Use a large spoon to fill a Ziplock bag with the ricotta mixture, then cut a hole in one of the corners. You can also use a pastry bag with a wide tip, or without a tip, if you have one. Start at one end of the pasta shell and pipe mixture in until about halfway full. Then turn the shell over and repeat on the other side. Line the filled shells in your prepared pan. No mess, no fuss, just perfectly filled pasta shells.
4. Bake the shells. Pour the remaining spaghetti sauce over the filled manicotti shells. Make sure each shell is coated in sauce. Use aluminum foil to cover the pan, sealing it along the rim of the pan. Bake for 55 minutes, then remove the foil and sprinkle the remaining mozzarella cheese over the shells. Return the pan to the oven and bake for 5 more minutes, or until the cheese is melted.

Make it a Freezer Meal

This is an easy meal to freeze and bake later. It’s also an ideal option for taking dinner into a friend or neighbor. We almost always double the recipe and prepare two pans. We bake one for dinner and freeze the other baking dish for another time, or to give to someone in need of a warm, rich, nourishing dinner.

How to Freeze Manicotti

If you’re freezing one or more pans of this recipe, follow the instructions in the recipe card below. Once the dish is covered with aluminum foil, use a marker to write baking instructions on top of the foil so you (or anyone you take this meal to) remember the correct baking temperature and how to bake it.

Baking from Frozen Instructions

Thaw the cheese manicotti dish overnight in the refrigerator before baking. Leaving the foil on the pan, bake at 375 degrees for 35 minutes. Then uncover, sprinkle some mozzarella cheese over the top, then return to the oven for about five minutes or until the cheese melts. It tastes just as fresh as if you just made it. And the leftovers taste even better!

Suggestions for This Recipe

• For a meat filling, you can add Italian sausage, ground beef or turkey to this dish. Brown the meat and mix it in with your cheese mixture. Then, fill your manicotti shells as directed in the recipe card below.
• Hand shred the mozzarella cheese. Cheese shredded from a block melts better and tastes better than the pre-shredded cheese you buy in the bag. Pre-shredded cheese is coated with a It only adds a few minutes of time, but it makes a big difference in taste and texture.