We love pasta dishes around here. They tend to be a cheap way to feed this crew, and thankfully we have no food allergies (though hubby is exhibiting a sensitivity to yeast and gluten these days).
This recipe can be adapted for wheat pasta or gluten free pasta as well as light dairy. Versatile is always a plus when dealing with a recipe 🙂
You Need:
2 packages manicotti noodles
Stuffing
1 lb of your favorite meat (I used a roll of breakfast sausage)
2lbs cottage cheese (I use 1 and a half of the 24oz containers)
frozen spinach
parsley flakes
pepper
1 egg (can be omitted for allergies)
ground parmesan
Topping
Basic red sauce using crushed tomato for marinara
4 cups shredded mozzarella (can use less, but we love cheese)
I set the stock pot to boil for the noodles while I whip up the red sauce first and then the stuffing.
You won’t want these to fully soften because they will stick together and break apart when stuffing 😦 It works best if they are still pretty stiff.
I don’t add salt to my water because we have a water softener. The basic red sauce is made over a very low heat and can be left alone with a lid on the pot for the thorough heating.
For the stuffing I brown the sausage (you could add onion to this process if you wanted) and while that is browning, I place the rest of the stuffing mix into a bowl. Once the sausage has been drained, I toss that in.
When the noodles are still sort of firm, I rinse them in cold water, then let them rest in cold water while we are stuffing. This prevents the noodles from clumping and sticking.
I have the kids help me with the stuffing. Everyone gets a spoon and we shovel the stuffing into the manicotti.
We pile these stuffed manicotti noodles into a lightly greased 9×13 baking dish.
I pour the red sauce over the noodles and then layer on the cheese.
This dish goes into a preheated oven of 375* for around 45 minutes till the cheese looks the way you want it too. For me, the cheese is browned at the edges and the juices are bubbling around the edges 🙂
This can be considered a cheap meal depending on the meat and cheese options.
Kay's Little Korner 
Yum. I love manicotti.
Oh baby, it is. But when I get the noodles a little too done, they don’t soak up the cottage cheese juice like they are supposed to, hence the appearance of liquid at the bottom 😉
I can’t remember the last time I had manicotti … looks SO good!Susan
Pretty tasty, friend 🙂 Wish you were close enough to come over and help us eat it!!
Manicotti is one of my favorite comfort foods! This may be a dumb question, but what does a water softener have to do with salt?
That is not a dumb question. This is the first house we have lived in that had one, so I learned a lot last summer 😉 We go the cheap route and put the rock salt for water softeners in ours. There is a low sodium option, but it is nearly 3x the cost up here. Hubby has blood pressure concerns, so I cut back on adding salt with it being in the water from the softener.I should have a stuffed manicotti party, wanna come?