You’ll love these jumbo pasta shells stuffed with a rich filling of cheese, spinach and ground venison.
These stuffed shells were a continuation of my mission to try and come up with creative and unexpected uses for ground venison (and for a bonus humblebrag, these smoked Scotch eggs were a previous triumph!).
Though frozen venison is accessible all year round, I primarily associate deer meat with Winter because of hunting season. Wintertime meals are synonymous with hearty comfort food, and pasta dishes are a natural extension of that. Naturally, you can easily substitute the venison for ground pork or beef, though the lean meat is well paired with the creamy ricotta.
The shells are also a great “make in advance” dish – you can get the shells stuffed and nestled into their baking tray, then store in the fridge until you’re ready to warm in the oven. You could also freeze batches in advance, warming in the same oven for just a little longer than the recipe dictates.
Here’s how you make ’em:
Stuffed Shells with Ricotta, Spinach & Venison
Ingredients
12 oz jumbo pasta shells (30 total shells)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 lb ground venison
2 teaspoons of Hardcore Carnivore Red seasoning
2 cups packed frozen spinach, thawed
1 cup ricotta cheese
3/4 cup shredded mozzarella
1 egg, beaten
2 teaspoons nutmeg
zest of one lemon
24 oz marinara sauce
2–3 tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese
salt
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, and cook the pasta shells for 2-4 minutes less than the recommended time on the packed (they will be cooked again in the oven). Drain and set aside.
- Preheat an oven to 350f.
- Heat the olive oil in a skillet, and brown the venison, seasoning with salt. You may need to brown in batches to avoid overcrowding the pan.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine spinach, ricotta, egg, mozzarella, nutmeg, Red seasoning and lemon zest. Mix together and salt to taste. Mix in the cooled venison.
- Place one cup of marinara sauce at the bottom of a baking dish, spreading it to cover the entire base.
- Use a spoon to scoop about 1-2 tablespoons of mixture and stuff it inside one of the cooked pasta shells, then place into the baking dish. Repeat and stack the shells close together. Repeat until all shells are filled and the dish is full. Use a spoon to ladle the remaining sauce between the packed shells.
- Cover the dish with foil and place into the oven. Bake for 25 minutes. Then, remove the foil and sprinkle the parmesan cheese over the top of the shells. Bake a further 15 minutes and serve while still warm.
Glad to be the first rating. Loved this. We hunt deer on our property each season. Two deer feed my in laws (three total with Grandma) and our family of three for the whole year. Using the fresh ground meat is incredible. We really enjoyed the lemon zest in the shell filling. We grow our own herbs so I did add fresh basil and oregano. Have a 1 year old little girl with low iron so we try to give her high iron meats… she was chowing down. Thank you Jess! Will be making again for sure.
This was a hit in our house. Used venison from my son’s deer. I gave it four stars because I thought the nutmeg was a little too noticeable among the other flavors. The only complaint I had on the recipe is that the ingredient list calls for Hardcore Carnivore Red, but there is no reference in any of the cooking steps on when to use it. I just stirred it into the filling.