This Spinach and Cheese Stuffed Manicotti is a favorite family recipe. Watch the video in the post showing you how to make manicotti, then scroll all the way to the bottom of this post and print out a clean copy of the recipe so you can make it at home.
Spinach and Cheese Stuffed Manicotti
Manicotti is a dish of great comfort. It makes plenty, it’s filling, it’s completely family-friendly, and the leftovers are even better than the freshly made batch. We make this when we have a handful of friends or family around. It’s a nice, no-fuss recipe that everyone seems to love. Make it ahead, keep it in the fridge and toss it in the oven when everybody is ready to eat.
If you didn’t know, manicotti is a pasta noodle shaped like a tube. It’s about 4-inches long, and 1-inch in diameter. Usually it’s boiled until al dente, then cooled, filled with some kind of cheese filling, covered with sauce and baked. In this recipe, you don’t have to bake the noodles before filling them. They’ll cook in the sauce when you bake the manicotti in the oven.
🛒Ingredients needed:
- ricotta cheese
- mozzarella cheese
- cream cheese
- parmesan cheese
- frozen spinach
- eggs
- salt & freshly ground black pepper
- manicotti noodles
- marinara sauce
✏️How to make Spinach and Cheese Stuffed Manicotti:
*The complete, printable recipe with all ingredients and instructions is at the end of this post.
The filling is very simple to make. Just mix it all up in a bowl until it’s well-blended. If you (or your kids) don’t like spinach, you can always leave it out… though I’ve found that you don’t really detect it all that much with all of the other wonderful things and sauce in the recipe.
You might consider it a good way to “sneak” some good stuff into dinner.
A layer of sauce goes into the bottom of a 13×9-inch pan.
The easiest way to stuff manicotti shells is the put the mixed filling into a plastic bag. You can use either a frosting piping bag or a gallon zip bag. Snip the corner, gather the top and squeeze the filling into the corner.
Hold an uncooked manicotti shell in your hand and squeeze the filling inside the shell. Let it overflow on both sides.
Place the filled shell into the sauce-lined pan.
Repeat with remaining manicotti and fill the pan with the stuffed shells, until you run out of shells and filling.
Cover with a generous layer of marinara sauce.
Sprinkle cheese on top. At this point, you can cover with foil, refrigerate and then bake when you’re ready. It’s ok to leave it in the refrigerator overnight.
Cover and bake for about an hour.
Pop open a bottle of red wine and eat! This Spinach and Cheese Stuffed Manicotti recipe will feed 6 or 7 hungry people- 2 stuffed shells each is plenty when served with salad and garlic bread. And lighter eaters will be plenty full with just one shell.
★How to Store:
Store leftovers in the refrigerator and enjoy over the next few days. I guarantee they won’t last long. Manicotti also freezes well. Just place leftovers in an airtight container and you can keep them in the freezer for up to 3 months.
❤️Why I love this recipe:
- My family has been loving this recipe since I was a kid. At our house it’s always been our traditional Christmas Eve meal.
- It’s a crowd pleaser. Even people who say they don’t like spinach love these manicotti!
- I love that it can be made ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator until I’m ready to bake it. Makes getting dinner together so simple.
The Best Manicotti Recipes:
- Pumpkin Manicotti with Bechamel Sauce
- Chicken Manicotti
- Ham and Cheese Manicotti
- Chicken Manicotti Alfredo
Spinach and Cheese Stuffed Manicotti
Ingredients
- 15 ounces part skim ricotta cheese
- 8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
- 4 ounces cream cheese
- ½ cup shredded Parmesan cheese
- 10 ounces frozen spinach, thawed & squeezed dry
- 2 large eggs
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 box (12 to 14 shells) manicotti noodles
- 4 cups marinara sauce (jarred or homemade)
- ½ cup shredded Parmesan cheese, for topping
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350℉.
- In a large bowl, mix the cheeses, spinach, eggs, salt and pepper. Stir together until well blended.
- Place about 1½ cups of marinara sauce in a 9x13-inch pan. Spread it around to cover the bottom.
- Place the mixed filling into a plastic bag. You can use either a frosting piping bag or a gallon zip bag. Snip the corner, gather the top and squeeze the filling into the corner. Hold an uncooked manicotti shell in your hand and squeeze the filling inside the shell. Let it overflow on both sides. Alternately, you can stuff the uncooked noodles with a small spoon or fork. Place the filled shell into the sauce-lined pan. Repeat with remaining manicotti and fill the pan with the stuffed shells, until you run out of shells and filling. You should be able to fill 12 to 14 shells- if you run out of room in your pan, use a separate smaller pan to accommodate the extra.
- Cover the pasta completely with marinara sauce, using about 2½ cups of sauce. Sprinkle ½ cup Parmesan on top. At this point, you can cover with foil and refrigerate until you're ready to bake, or you can cover with foil and place it in the oven immediately.
- Bake, covered with foil, 50 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 10 minutes.
Notes
- It's perfectly okay to use low fat ricotta and low fat cream cheese.
- If you don't wish to use the spinach, it's ok to leave it out and just turn this into a cheese-stuffed manicotti.
- If you don't wish to use the plastic bag method of squeezing the filling into the shells, you can use a very small spoon or fork to stuff the filling-- it will just take a bit longer and might be a little messy.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
My family loved these have asked me to make again for famy day!!! Going to try not cooking noodles this time after reading blog. Thanks for recipe
Made this the other day! Fed me and my roommates for days! It was delicious.
Great recipe and so simple don’t know why I don’t make it more often. I used the same filling for chicken roulades, wonderful!!!
I’ve used this recipe twice now. Absolutely delicious. The 2nd time I actually added 1/2 lb of ground beef to the sauce, then put that on top of the manicotti. I like it both ways!
I made this for dinner tonight, it was a perfect potrion of stuffing for the box of manicotti. My husband and kids loved it, thanks for the recipe.
I also had extra filling and sauce leftover, which I think the filling should freeze well for another use.
Made this last night, cooked it and had it for dinner. Might I say this was the BEST manicotti I’ve ever made! Made a few modifications: dash of garlic powder, dash of italian seasoning, parmesan, asiagio and romano shredded cheese mix to the cheese mixture. Browned up out of their casings, 3 hot italian sausage links, drained and added 2 jars Paul Newman Marinara sauce and let simmer while I filled the manicotti. For those who have issues using the plastic bag, and I was hesitant after reading the reviews, so I got one of my daughter’s old baby spoons out of the drawer (the kind with the rubber spoon part, I still use them to get into the horseradish jars LOL) and used that to fill the manicotti and it worked beautifully!! I also must say, it is SO much easier to fill them uncooked! Placed a layer of sauce on the bottom, filled the casserole dish with as many as I could (12, had two left over didn’t fill them) and covered them with the sauce completely. I topped them with a little fresh mozzarella that i had leftover from another recipe, and some for of the trio cheese mix, covered it and baked it as directed. Came out perfectly cooked! Thank you Lori, for such an amazingly awesome recipe!!! I will never cook noodles for manicotti or lasagna, ever again!!!
I made this today and it’s in the fridge right now. I had filled 14 manicotti shells and still have a lot of fillings left over. Can’t wait to cook it!
I made these yesterday. They were so delicious! I will say that you might want to use name brand for the shells because sometimes the cheaper ones don’t make the holes on the end big enough to pipe it through. Also, invest in a pastry bag because it can be difficult to get into the shells with plastic zip lock bags. I made it work but it would be easier using a pastry bag. This was a great recipe and I will be making it again! Thanks!
You’re absolutely right- pastry bags do indeed make it much easier to fill the shells!
What is the nutritional value? Calories, fat, sodium etc?
No idea- but there are recipe calculators online that you can use if you want to figure it out. I usually use the Spark People Recipe Calculator.