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
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.
All that cream sauce. All that pasta, just collecting that creaminess. And the perfectly crumbled ground beef, again, soaking up every last drop of that creamy, heavenly goodness.
Ugh, I can’t even talk about this anymore because now I need to make this for dinner. Again. For the 14th time.
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.
Did you make this recipe?
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Very good, quick dinner!
Made this for my family and they loved it. I only had chicken broth & white cheddar but it was still so delicious. And it came together so quickly. Thank you for this one!
We love hearing that! Thanks, Vanessa!
Absolutely amazing. So creamy and delicious. Followed the recipe exactly as is! Will be adding to my dinner rotation 🙂
Made this 3 times. This casserole is AWESOME!!! In my opinion in needs absolutely no “tweaking”.
This was very good, I am going to make with chicken today, should be fine…
Wow! I am really not a big fan of meat sauce- that being said, it’s a family favorite so on occasion I feel obliged to make it. I am beyond excited to say that it is AMAZING! This is the second time using beef stock in a meat sauce (lasagna), and it is divine. I added goat cheese for the hell of it as well.. thanks again, I can now look forward to pasta night!
I was a little Leary about this but my family really enjoyed it. It was easy to make that is what I like. I didn’t have beef stock and I used beef broth which was just as good. I definitely will make this again
The recipe says it makes 4 servings what is a serving size
Tammie, you would have to divide the full amount by 4 servings to get the serving size. Hope that helps!
This is one of our favorite recipes that we can’t get enough of! We made this for Valentines dinner as we didn’t want to go a restaurant. It is so easy to make and tasted so good! My husband claims the leftovers taste better the next day lol
We cannot get enough of this dish. We’ve been making it once a week. My wife renamed it “homemade Italian Hamburger Helper”
Haha perfect title! 🙂
Yum, yum and yum again! So easy to make and so delicious to eat. =)
This was amazing. It was quick and easy. I was actually surprised by how good it is. It’s a heavy, comfort-food type meal, but not TOO heavy. I love your recipes so much! My recipe book is FILLED with them. Keep being amazing!
That was really delicious! Thank you for the recipe. I may try to add spinach next time. There’s enough extra sauce to make it wilt and incorporate.
Made this tonight and we loved it! It was delicious while being a super quick and easy recipe.
I actually used an entire 16 oz of shells without really doubling anything else in the recipe (just upped the heavy cream to 1 cup). While it was certainly less “saucy” than what is shown in the pictures, it was still really yummy! Definitely a keeper for the regular rotation. Thank you for a fantastic recipe!
We’re so happy to hear you enjoyed it!
Family absolutely loves this meal! So easy to make and I added some kielbasa cause my boys love it!
Hi what kind of tomato sauce? Is it ketchup or as in condensed tomato soup
Canned tomato sauce is a cooked purée of unseasoned tomatoes.
This is yummy but there is couple things about it.
I feel like the Italian seasoning is a bit overwhelming so you could lessen the amount if you don’t love Italian seasoning, and the second thing I thing the extra sharp cheese is a bit much but you could definitely do regular sharp and be just fine or even regular cheddar. All a matter of preference. But it is basically like made from scratch hamburger helper and tastes much better than the box stuff. definitely a great quick easy meal for a week night.I will probably make this again with a few adjustments.
Hi! Quick question- could you cook the beef along with the onion, garlic and Italian seasoning? Or does the beef absorb some flavor from the sauce later on? I am big on making sure the beef has flavor!
I am so excited to try this dish though!!
You can certainly try to cook the ground beef with the onion, garlic and Italian seasoning but if it is all set aside, the sauce will not absorb any of these flavors. If the beef is not set aside, you run the risk of overcooking it. Hope that helps, Christy!
5 stars. Wife doesn’t eat pasta or tomato. She’s on her third bowl. She suggested garlic bread to go with it. I used venison, added 1/4 too much heavy cream, had to simmer down. Thanks for keeper.
It LOOKS delicious, SMELLS delicious, but no flavor at all. I believe if I would have seasoned my meat like I normally do before hand it would of been perfect. Still ate it, and will totally cook again, just going to add more spice.
Tasty, Delicious! My entire family loved this dish. I will definitely be making this again!