You can get so creative with stuffed shells, such as these butternut squash stuffed shells! Traditionally these jumbo shells are stuffed with ricotta cheese and topped with tomato sauce. Now that fall has arrived, Reyhan and I have been trying to incorporate autumn ingredients into our dishes. We came up with this idea to stuff the shells with roasted butternut squash, kale and tofu ricotta. The result was delicious! These would work great for a holiday party or if you’re just looking for a great comfort meal.
The squash added a such nice sweetness to the dish. We made a sage butter sauce to top it off with fresh sage from the garden. A general rule of thumb I try to follow when cooking is that if you have a dish that has a lot of sweetness, it’s always good to balance it out with either salty or spicy. The sage butter sauce adds some saltiness to this dish without overwhelming it. We hope you love these butternut squash stuffed shells as much as we did. Look out for our exciting fall inspired recipes to come! Make sure to tag us if you recreate this recipe, we love to see it!
Check out more of our butternut squash recipes here!
BUTTERNUT SQUASH STUFFED SHELLS
Course: DinnerCuisine: VeganDifficulty: Easy2
servings10
minutes40
minutesIngredients
1 1/2 cups worth diced butternut squash or roughly half of a small squash
1 cup chopped kale or 3 large leaves
2 cloves garlic
14 uncooked jumbo pasta shells
2 tbsp cooking oil
for tofu ricotta
250 grams extra firm tofu
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
The juice from ½ of a lemon
½ tsp dried basil
for sage butter sauce
¼ cup vegan butter
¼ cup oat milk or cashew milk
8 sage leaves
2 shallots
Directions
- Prep: Peel and roughly chop shallots. Peel squash and chop into small cubes. Remove stems from kale and dice. Peel and finely dice garlic cloves. Preheat a large skillet on medium/low heat and preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Add 1 tbsp of cooking oil to the skillet. Once oil is thoroughly heated, add diced kale and garlic. Stir every couple of minutes to avoid burning. Cook for 5 minutes or until kale softens then remove from pan. Pour your cubed squash onto a baking tray and drizzle with 1 tbsp of cooking oil. Sprinkle with salt and bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees.
- To the pan you used to sauté the kale and garlic, set to medium/low heat and add ¼ cup of vegan butter. Once butter is melted add chopped shallots. Sauté the shallots until they become soft and add the sage leaves. cook for 3 minutes before whisking in the plant based milk.
- Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil then add pasta shells. Cook for 10 minutes or until tender. Remove squash from oven and transfer to a large bowl. Use a fork to mash the squash until it resembles orange mashed potatoes. Add tofu ricotta ingredients to bowl along with sautéed kale and garlic. Stir to combine all ingredients.
- Strain pasta shells and run under cold water for a few minutes. They will be hot and this will cool them down quickly. Place pasta shells in a deep oven safe dish evenly spaced. Use a spoon to stuff each shell with an equal amount of your squash ricotta mixture. Use a spoon to pour the sage butter sauce overtop of each shell. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.
- Remove from oven, serve and enjoy!
