Taco Pasta Shells. Pasta with a Mexican Twist!
My family loved these taco pasta shells. Everyone actually ate them. No one complained. Everyone finished what was on their plate AND had seconds.
I absolutely hate the question, “What’s for dinner?” My older teen loves pasta with red sauce and my younger one doesn’t like it (I know, weird, isn’t it?). Then my younger one loves tacos and my older one doesn’t. Just to torture my family, we regularly have spaghetti one day then tacos the next. But, one day last week, I made taco pasta shells : ).
One of the things I do to try to make mealtime easier is to brown double the ground beef that I need. Then make two ground beef based meals within a couple of days. If you’ve never done this before, try it! It does make dinner time just a little easier and a little quicker. Plus, you’ve planned two meals for the week!
Honestly, I find these shells much easier to fill than the pasta tubes.
I was buying my ingredients for those two meals and then came up with what I thought would be an awesome dish. Part tacos, part a pasta dish. I figured either both kids would love it or both would hate it. I was so BORED with our original meal rotation that I was willing to risk it. Do you ever feel that way? Just really tired of all the meals you make? I guess that’s why I was inspired to try something new.
Here is the taco pasta shells printable recipe
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Taco pasta shells
Instructions
- Cook ground beef and add about 1/2 cup of water and taco seasoning. Simmer until most of the water is gone. Set aside and let cool a bit.
- In blender, mix/blend salsa and tomato sauce. My family won’t eat chunks! If you like spicy Mexican food, you can just use all salsa. Set aside.
- Boil jumbo shells about 2 minutes less than cooking instructions on package
- Drain and rinse shells with cold water.
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Spray 9 x 13 casserole dish with nonstick spray
- Pour enough tomato/salsa sauce to thinly cover bottom of casserole dish
- Take a shell and stuff it with the groundbeef/taco spice mixture.
- Add some cheese on top of the ground beef mixture.
- Place the shells into the casserole dish
- Once all shells are assembled and in casserole dish, drizzle on balance of salsa sauce.
- Sprinkle on any remaining cheese.
- Cover with foil and bake in oven for about 25 minutes.
- Remove foil and finish baking for another 5 minutes.
- ENJOY!!
I hope you enjoy this dish as much as we did! I still can’t get over that there were only three shells left at the end of the meal. You know everyone is enjoying their food when you get that quiet lull in the conversation. Love it when that happens!!
Thanks Mary! It is hard finding meals everyone loves. So happy it worked for you!
These were a huge hit in my family….not a shell left! Thanks for the recipe….nice change-up!