Creamy Beef and Shells
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A quick/easy ground beef recipe, this is a pasta dish that will be on your dinner table all week long! So creamy and so comforting!
Featured Comment
why i love this recipe
- All that cream sauce
- All that pasta, just collecting that creaminess
- The perfectly crumbled ground beef, again, soaking up every last drop of that creamy, heavenly goodness
- Made in 30-40 min, a true weeknight superhero
I cannot even begin to tell you how much of this pasta I ate on probably 13 different occasions. Well, first, I should tell you that no plating of any kind was involved here. Nope. This is clearly a straight-out-of-the-skillet type dinner. Just grab your fork and dig right in. Ugh, I can’t even talk about this anymore because now I need to make this for dinner again for the 14th time.
tips and tricks for success
- Use your favorite meat. Ground beef, chicken or turkey will all work very well here.
- Add in leafy greens. This is a great recipe to sneak in leafy greens for those picky eaters. Spinach, kale, collard greens, swiss chard, or arugula are all great options.
- Add the cream slowly. Always add the heavy cream at the very end, pouring very slowly to prevent curdling.
- Serve with crusty bread. Serve with all the homemade crusty bread for dipping, sopping and dunking!
- Freeze as needed. Let cool completely; portion into plastic freezer bags in individual servings, squeezing out any excess air before sealing. Lay the bags flat in a single layer in the freezer (this will help them freeze quickly). To reheat, thaw overnight in the fridge, reheating over low heat, stirring occasionally, until heated through.
what to serve with creamy beef and shells
Tools For This Recipe
Large cast iron skillet
Creamy Beef and Shells: Frequently Asked Questions
Not at all! Ground pork or ground turkey can be used instead of ground beef.
Tomato sauce, in the US, is tomato puree typically cooked down for a thick, smooth consistency with a relatively sweet flavor. Passata is simply uncooked tomato purée. You can use passata in place of tomato sauce, but it is not a completely equal substitute.
Heavy cream (or heavy whipping cream) has one of the highest fat contents with about 36-40% fat. Half and half or whole milk are suitable substitutes, but will yield a lighter result.
Yes! You can freeze the leftovers in individual freezer bags, thaw overnight, and reheat on the stovetop.
Creamy Beef and Shells
Ingredients
- 8 ounces medium pasta shells
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 pound ground beef
- ½ medium sweet onion, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 ½ teaspoons Italian seasoning
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 2 cups beef stock
- 1 (15-ounce) can tomato sauce
- ¾ cup heavy cream
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 6 ounces shredded extra-sharp cheddar cheese, about 1 1/2 cups
Equipment
Instructions
- In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta according to package instructions; drain well.
- Heat olive oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Add ground beef and cook until browned, about 3-5 minutes, making sure to crumble the beef as it cooks; drain excess fat. Set aside.
- Add onion to the skillet, and cook, stirring frequently, until translucent, about 2-3 minutes.
- Stir in garlic and Italian seasoning until fragrant, about 1 minute.
- Whisk in flour until lightly browned, about 1 minute.
- Gradually whisk in beef stock and tomato sauce. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until reduced and slightly thickened, about 6-8 minutes.
- Stir in pasta, beef and heavy cream until heated through, about 1-2 minutes; season with salt and pepper, to taste. Stir in cheese until melted, about 2 minutes.
- Serve immediately.
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Total comfort food! YUM! Thank you for this recipe, we had a snowy and cold day today so I took some time to whip this up. It is so tasty, warm and inviting. I used dehydrated herbs from my garden to make Italian seasoning and had to substitute chicken stock for beef. I am waiting for my husband to come home from work because he will love this. I just can’t stay out of it! This recipe is a keeper and will give us some extra meals for the week. Thanks for the love Chungah!
This was a good comfort food meal. You probably have nearly everything on hand. I used milk vs. cream. Three generations all liked it.Hubby wanted it with a thicker looking sauce. That was because I used diced tomatoes vs. tomato sauce. ( all I had)
Good flavor. Makes a lot.
This pasta is heavenly and worth gathering up the ingredients to make. If you want you can substitute the garlic and onion for garlic and onion powders, but THANK YOU, author of the recipe, it was Damn Delicious
Because Italian seasoning is a powerful flavor I wouldn’t use as much as they say, 1 1\2 teaspoons is way to much we thought it took over all the other flavors you should have been tasting..but definitely gonna try it again with less Italian seasoning.
Omg I will never buy boxed hamburger helper again! This was great! I didn’t have beef broth so I substituted chicken broth and used some beef bullion. Delish!!!
This was really yummy! I substituted the pasta to Braille gluten free pasta and added about 1/4 block of cream cheese and that did it! It was creamy but not too rich!
This is amazing! Can I freeze it?
Absolutely!
I thought this recipe was easy, tasty and works great as a
quick weekday meal. I seasoned the ground beef;
added minced garlic, fresh basil, oregano and cooked all
together. Also added mushrooms. Followed rest of
recipe as stated.
Soooo good. I made mine gluten free using GF fussilli pasta and corn starch instead of flour. I also added spinach and some fresh diced tomatoes from the garden. I was meal prepping, so I only got a small bite, and now I can’t wait to eat it tomorrow!
So I decided to make a twist off of this. I checked my refrigerator and found I didn’t have any onions. So I went to my garden and got 1 sweet pepper, one jalapeño, and one large tomato. Where your recipe called for onions I put 2 peppers. And when combining all ingredients I added chopped tomatoes. It was a bit spicy so I diluted with sour cream . I was so impressed. Thank you for this recipe!
We love this, its a weeknight favorite. I add a little Sicilian seasonings to the beef when sauteing. I have also omitted the flour completely, and instead added about a teaspoon of yellow mustard towards the end. It sounds crazy but it gives the dish a unique flavor.
I have been looking for something that would be like a homemade spaghettios with meatballs for my picky son. This was it!!! Thanks you so much.
This was so easy to make!! I would add some extra some kind of seasoning to the ground beef, but other than that it was good. It’ reminds me of hamburger helper except much creamer and better!!!
Made this recipe Sunday evening with garlic toast and a cesar salad! The
This was excellent! Easy to make and came out perfectly. I use beef base when a recipe calls for broth or stock. Right before the shells were done cooking, I ladled 2 cups of the pasta water into a measuring cup with the beef base. When I added the stock and tomato sauce and cooked it a few minutes, it thickened up perfectly. I also used the whole 1lb box of pasta because I knew it would all go (we don’t have any leftovers!) and the entire 8oz block of cheddar cheese I grated. My family, and I, all thought it had great flavor, was really creamy, and agreed this would be a dish we would all want to have again. Excellent recipe! *****
Hi Julie,
Did you omit the flour since the sauce thickened up so nicely after adding the pasta water to the beef base? Or did you still ad the flour?
Thanks!
Amazing. Delicious. Worth the effort. My marathon running boyfriend who only eats one plate at dinner had 3 helpings. 10/10 would make again. I absolutely love the sauce. Added a bit of cayenne for kick. Thank you so much for a new family favorite!
My family and I loved this! We almost fought over the leftovers lmao. I didn’t find it runny or bland at all! I used Better Than Bouillon (beef flavour), made sure to drain the beef, used Clubhouse Italiano seasoning, and the tomato sauce I bought had some salt and spices in it (it was Heinz brand I think). I also made sure to simmer the sauce for the full 8 minutes. Definitely going to make again!!
Oh, I also doubled the garlic because I love garlic and almost always increase the quantity when following a recipe.
Really, really good. I had to use Colby Jack cheese because that’s all I had but I think the xtra sharp cheddar would have been way better. I hate washing pans so I made it all in one. Left the burger in the pan, added the onion, garlic, seasoning then mixed flour in after onion was translucent. Added broth and tomato sauce then uncooked pasta. Cooked till pasta was to my liking then added the cream and cheese at the end. Really, really good!!
My whole family really loved this dish!! I made it exactly as written. Thanks so much!
I assume all the great reviews were left by a loyal audience who judge recipes after reading -before cooking. The taste is alright and leaves a lot to be desired. I spiced it up quite a bit. Unfortunately, I followed the recipe and it is unbelievable soupy. Way too much liquid. We ate it in a bowl with crackers because we were hungry. Would I cook it again? No!
Hi Bridget! There are over 100 reviews here based on readers who really cooked the recipe with amazing results. But I’m sorry to hear this recipe wasn’t for you!
Yep! It was awesome. Not soupy at all
Rude much?