Vegan Stuffed Shells For the Whole Family

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Vegan Stuffed Shells are a super cozy, flavorful, and easy dinner. With some jumbo shells and our 5-minute vegan ricotta filling, you'll soon have an amazing comfort dish in about 30 minutes. It's great for meal prep and family gatherings!

Hey Internet, we've got another great pasta dish for you today. The ultimate comfort food, stuffed shells are normally filled with a ricotta-spinach mix. We developed a Vegan Ricotta Cheese a while back and it's so creamy. It's also made with a food processor, so you can make a batch of it and then just add your spinach. It's perfect for this shells recipe.

We love pasta and some of our best vegan recipes are noodle or pasta recipes. Our most popular recipe ever is or 15 Minutes Vegan Garlic Noodles. We also have our Lemon Tahini Broccolini Pasta and 15 Minute Vegan Lo Mein which continue to be a few of our most popular recipes. We also have the Vegan Ricotta Pasta and Vegan Manicotti which both use our Vegan Ricotta Cheese. We're also working on a vegan lasagna, coming soon!

Let's get into making this vegan version of the classic stuffed shell recipe everyone loves.

Why You'll Love These Vegan Stuffed Shells

• Family Favorite: If your family likes Italian food, they'll definitely love this dish! It's kid-friendly too, so the whole family will enjoy it. This recipe makes about six to eight servings, so it's great making sure everyone gets fed. To make it a meal, try pairing it with our Vegan Garlic Bread and Air Fryer Asparagus, Portobello Steaks, or Air Fryer Brussels Sprouts (or your favorite veggie!).
• Comfort Food: With gooey creamy vegan cheese in the ricotta filling and and luscious pasta sauce, this recipe turns into a delicious meal!
• High Protein: With tofu dairy-free ricotta, there's 18 grams of protein in each serving of this recipe.

Ingredients

Pick up these simple ingredients the next time you're at your local grocery store. See the recipe card at the bottom of this post for full ingredients, instructions, and accurate nutrition information (to the best of my ability; please consult your physician or healthcare professional if you have specific dietary needs or need to meet a certain daily value of any nutrient). I give substitutions for the ingredients in the section below this one, so most people can still make this recipe!

• 12 oz Jumbo Pasta Shells: Use gluten-free if needed. I've heard good things about Tinkyada Brown Rice Jumbo Shells.
• 1 to 1.5 Batch of our Vegan Tofu Ricotta: This is really easy to make; takes about 5 minutes. The best part is that you can make our ricotta (in advance, if you like!) and then just dump in the spinach and just pulse it in.
• 10 oz Frozen Chopped Spinach: You can find these in the frozen vegetable section, usually in a brick.
• 1.5 Cups Marinara Sauce: We like to use a nice quality jarred sauce like Rao's, but use your favorite here.
• Vegan Parmesan For Topping, Optional: Violife makes this amazing block of vegan parmesan that we use whenever we need it in our recipes. It tastes great and shreds so well with a microplane. We also have a Vegan Parmesan recipe that you could use in place of it.
• Oil Spray, Optional: a little spray of oil can help vegan cheese melt. We tend to use an avocado oil spray when we use this method.

Substitutions

• Vegan Ricotta: In a pinch, you could instead use vegan cream cheese. Depending on the brand, you may need to soften it, or add a bit of plant-based milk when placing it in the food processor. If you have a sensitivity to soy, the are instructions in our ricotta recipe on how to make it as an almond or cashew ricotta using raw cashews or blanched almonds! You could also use raw sunflower seeds to keep it nut-free.
• Frozen Spinach: You can use fresh spinach for this recipe, however you'll need to cook it down to remove the liquid in it. Before starting the rest of the recipes, add some spinach to a non-stick pan and cook it on a stove on medium-high heat. It will wilt into tiny pieces. Let them cool and then you can use them in your ricotta mixture. 
• Marinara Sauce: You can make your own sauce if you have canned tomatoes. Add some stewed tomatoes, tomato paste, olive oil, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, and onion powder to a blender. You'll have a tomato sauce in no time! 
• Vegan Parmesan Cheese: You can use vegan mozzarella cheese shreds instead to cover the top of your pasta. Or try our vegan mozzarella sauce, which is this 5 minute creamy white sauce that tastes like mozzarella! If doing that, you don't need to cook the cheese sauce since it will cook in the oven.

How to Make Vegan Stuffed Shells

1. Start a Pot of Water: In a large pot, add enough water to cover your jumbo shells. Add a tablespoon of salt if desired to flavor the pasta and let the water come to a boil. Once it does, cook the jumbo shells in the boiling water until they are al dente. Drain the excess water from your pasta.
2. Pre-Heat Oven: Preheat your oven to 375 F (190 C).
3. Defrost the Spinach: If you plan ahead, you can defrost the spinach block by placing in it in your refrigerator or out on a counter, depending on how soon you plan to use it. Otherwise, you can defrost your spinach. Remove it from any packaging and place it on a microwave safe dish. Microwave by setting the power to 30 percent and heating it for 2-3 minute intervals until it is pliable.
4. Strain the Spinach: Hold your fine mesh strainer over a sink and then place your defrosted spinach in it. Press the water out of the spinach either by hand or, if it is too hot from the microwave, with the back of a spoon. You want to get the spinach from sopping wet to lightly damp. It will lose quite a lot of volume during this process but this is expected. Lightly pull apart the spinach into little pieces.
5. Make the Ricotta Spinach Filling: If you have not done so already, you can make the vegan ricotta recipe right now. Add the cheese ingredients to the food processor and blend until desired texture. Then add your spinach and pulse it into the mixture. Taste the mixture. If needed, add an extra pinch of salt or dash of lemon, but we thought it was pretty delicious as is.
6. Prepare the Baking Dish: In a 9x13 baking dish, add some of the tomato sauce, making sure to add it slowly to make sure you can reserve some for later. You want to use the back of a spoon to spread it out so that there are no white/empty spots on the bottom of the baking dish. This layer will help keep the pasta moist and add flavor.
7. Fill the Shells: With a spoon (we like one with a pointed end), fill each of the cooked shells with a bit of your ricotta mixture. You could also use a piping bag or a plastic bag (like food storage bag) with the corner cut off to fill them instead. Place each filled shell in the baking tray. Avoid using broken shells. You should have enough shells to comfortable fill the whole tray with enough left over to make up for the broken one.
8. Cover with Sauce: With the remaining pasta sauce, cover bits of the exposed pasta with dollops of sauce. Avoid hitting the dollops on open ricotta mixture to help prevent it from getting runny.
9. Grate the Vegan Parmesan: If you are using the vegan parmesan, use a microplane to grate shreds over the shells. To help it melt, you can blast the top of the pasta with a little oil spray. Alternatively you can add a pan of ice cubes on the rack below your pan of vegan stuffed shells. The steam will help melt the vegan cheese. I would avoid the broiler here as the uncovered pasta bits may burn.
10. Bake: Add the baking dish to you oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes (you might want to check it at 10-15 minutes then bake for longer if needed, depending on whether your oven runs hotter than ours!).
11. Serve: Let cool for 3 to 5 minutes and then plate with a large spoon or spatula. Goes perfectly with our vegan garlic bread!

Storage Instructions

Let baking dish cool completely. Add remaining stuffed pasta shells to an airtight container. Store in a refrigerator for 3 to 5 days. Reheat the shells in a microwave on a plate or in the oven with an oven-safe dish. Consider adding a little more sauce before reheating to help maintain the moistness of the shells.

Frequently Asked Questions

More Great Vegan Pasta Recipes

• Vegan Pasta Bake
• Vegan Rasta Pasta
• Vegan Cajun Pasta
• 15 Minute Vegan Garlic Noodles
• 15 Minute Vegan Lo Mein
• Vegan Broccoli Pasta Sauce
• Vegan Scallop Pasta
• Vegan Sausage Pasta

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