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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If you don’t have beef broth what can you use instead?
You can try to substitute chicken broth. 🙂
Pretty good. I saw a comment shutting down claims that it’s nothing like hamburger helper, but I have to disagree. Don’t get me wrong it was very good and all the kids are it.
But in my opinion it was 100% a homemade hamburger helper. If you like boxed hamburger helper (I don’t) then you will definitely prefer this homemade version.
Hope this doesn’t come across negative, like I said it was good, and I don’t like hamburger helper, but I liked this. It won’t be a frequent meal but definitely on the list for an every now and then meal. (Same for any red sauce/spaghetti type meal for us)
I was out of beef stock so I went for lemon grass stock !
Replaced cream with coconut milk
Tastes like Thai food
Yep, those two substitutions would definitely make it taste like Thai food.
I absolutely love this recipe. Before i “review” any recipe, I always cook it exactly as its written and if its not good I try again. That said it came out perfect the 1st time and since then I have made it multiple times and switched out different combos of protein and veg. Besides beef, you can substitute ground chicken and chicken stock and I used 15 ounces of homemade “cream of chicken” instead of the tomato sauce and then added steamed broccoli. Excellent recipe
Yum. Yum. Yum. This turned out great, and made enough for lunches. Winner winner beef dinner lol
Made this tonight for the first time. I think it would have been great as written, but I changed it up a tiny bit. I mixed the stock, tomato sauce and seasoning as directed but went a little heavy on the Italian seasoning. I also whisked in 2 teaspoons of sugar to this mixture. I used wide egg noodles for the pasta, a little more than 8 oz. I also just cooked the pasta in with the onions and sauce. When the pasta was done, added the beef back and added the creme. Let it thicken a little, killed the fire and stirred in the sharp cheddar. I also added 2 pinches of red pepper flake while the creme was thickening. It was pretty damned good. Comforting. The kid in both of us loved it.
Great recipe! I made it gluten free and dairy free. I exchanged milk with almond milk and used almond flour with a bit of starch to thicken it. It turned out great! Family loved it!
This was really good! The only thing I may do different next time would be to use a low sodium or no sodium beef broth. (Side note it could have just been the brand of broth I had that made it a little too salty).
I made this and thought the sauce needed something more. So as others have said, add some of your own seasoning to flavor it up. Definitely the crushed red pepper flakes on top was great. I definitely would make again. This was comfort food all the way.
Pretty simple recipe, not a fan though. Maybe I thought I liked Italian seasoning, and ended up not liking it? Lol. To me it taste like a spaghetti.. but was quite easy to make
I really love this dish. I’m shocked by one of the comments that likens it to Hamburger Helper as I think it’s fantastic! I use extra sharp cheddar and to me that comes through with a perfect tang.
Made this tonight, SO GOOD! I made 3 changes, one on accident. I used elbow noodles instead of shells. And left out onions as I don’t like. And I somehow missed the “set aside beef” part so simmered the sauce and beef for the 6-8 minutes. Oops! But I would do it again in a heartbeat. I wonder if more people did it this way, if their sauce would be thicker? Because mine was SUPER thick. This dish had amazing flavor, I could taste the garlic and italian seasoning. Rich, easy to make and comforting. Thanks!
Delicious! I added some mushrooms and cut down the beef stock as suggested by other readers. I also sautéed the onion first then added the beef and mushroom and seasoned as I cooked. I was lazy so I let the beef simmered in the stock and tomato sauce. It was easy and yummy!
Absolutely delicious and easy to make!
I followed the directions exactly, creamy and succulent
The only change I would make next time would be adding
4-8 ounces of sliced mushrooms.
This recipe is…damn delicious! My husband and I really enjoyed it. We will definitely make it again. The sauce was a little thin but I will play with it a little next time, maybe add more meat. I saw a lot of reviews saying this was bland. I always add extra seasoning to recipes. I thought it was always implied that you season to your personal tastes. Don’t be afraid to add extra seasoning! It turned out really flavorful for me.
To all the comments that states it was bland and/or watery – I added some crushed red pepper, about a half teaspoon, about a teaspoon of the sauce in a can of chipotle in adobo, cut out the flour completely and added a spoonful of tomato paste as my thickener. Added the depth of flavor many of you may have been missing and wasn’t too spicy. If you don’t like spice omit the pepper flakes. This is a more healthy version of hamburger helper!
I made it just as directed and it was a success with my picky eaters. My child was already cringing at the sight of it and then changed his mind after trying it! Score for mom!
It was good but the effort was not worth the outcome. It tasted very similar to a Hamburger Helped for triple the effort.
I’m not entirely sure if I can make it any easier than this recipe, Mackenzie! But thanks for giving it a try! 🙂
I agree with one of the other posters. It was okay. Definitely missing something, very bland. I was hoping the garlic would ad to the flavor a little more than it did.
Delicious even my pickiest eater loved it…Thanks!
Was very good! Hubby loved it. Definitely will make this more often!
I made this tonight exactly like the recipe and it was delicious!! I’ll most definitely be making this again.