a non-traditional holiday meal with stella® cheese

This post is sponsored by Stella® Cheese but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

I don’t know about you guys, but in the months of November and December we attend A LOT of holiday parties. My husband and I have multiple parties for each sides of our family, plus friend parties, and all the kid’s events as well! That usually means eating a lot of turkey, ham, stuffing… all your basic holiday foods.

I think it’s nice to switch up the traditional holiday meals with some other out of the box meals. For at least one of our holiday parities we will do Italian food! It’s still in the same “comfort food” category but many people might not think of it as holiday party food.

We absolutely love this easy meal! It can be doubled or tripled without much effort in order to feed a large family. Mix up a caesar salad and bake some garlic bread and you have a simple yummy meal. This recipe calls for ALLL the cheese (my type of recipe). I love to use a gourmet brand of cheese to give it more of that “fancy” holiday feel. Stella® Cheese brand is a great option for this! They have all our favorite cheeses like ricotta, blue cheese, parmesan, and my personal favorite.. asiago! For this recipe we will be using their parmesan and fontina cheeses.

These cheeses can be found at your local Wakefern, Albertsons, Supervalu, Shaw’s, Meijer, Ahold/Delhaize, Harris-Teeter. Check out their website for learn more about Stella® Cheese.

I start by boiling the jumbo shells. When they are done cooking, run them under cold water so you don’t burn your hands while you’re stuffing! I’ve learned that a time or two. 😉 Once your noodles are about half way done, preheat your oven to 400 degrees and spray a glass dish with cooking spray.

While your noodles are boiling you can start preparing the cheese mixture. Dice up the spinach or if you used canned spinach, make sure you squeeze out all the excess water as best as possible. Add the spinach, ricotta cheese, fontina cheese, parmesan cheese, egg, salt and pepper to a bowl and mix together.

Gently stuff the jumbo noodles with the mixture, being careful not to rip the noodle. Place them in the glass dish and top with your favorite pasta sauce and more parmesan.

Cook for 30 minutes in the oven!

This is such an easy and filling recipe! My husband and I can get full on four stuffed shells! My kids typically eat two of them. I hope this gives you a non-traditional idea for a holiday meal. You could really alter it to your families liking too. Add some ground beef or more veggies. Instead of stuffing the mixture in shells, maybe eat it as a dip with tortillas! Try out different cheeses too – especially since Stella® Cheese has so many options!

Print Recipe

Spinach Stuffed Shells

Prep Time15 mins

Cook Time30 mins

Total Time45 mins

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Italian

Servings: 4 people

Ingredients

• 1 box Jumbo Shells
• 15 oz Ricotta Cheese
• 1 cup Fontina Cheese shredded
• 1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese
• 1 Egg
• 10 oz Spinach diced fresh or canned
• 2.5 cup Marinara Sauce
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Instructions

• Bring noodles to a boil.
• Dice spinach or squeeze liquid out of canned spinach. Preheat oven to 400. Spray glass dish with cooking spray.
• Combine spinach, ricotta, fontina, parmesan, egg, salt and pepper. Mix well. 
• Stuff cooked shells with the cheese mixture and set into baking dish. 
• Top with marinara sauce and more parmesan. 
• Cook for 30 minutes. 

Let me know what you think another good non-traditional holiday meal is! We are always looks to switch it up!