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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This looks great! What kind of sides would you recommend with this?
Hi Holly! My absolute favorite side dish is the garlic parmesan roasted potatoes. But please feel free to check out all of my side dish recipes here.
Have only made once but was a huge hit with my wife and I. Will make it often (exactly per recipe). Others compare with hamburger helper??? No way… this is MUCH better.
GREAT. Good bit more liquid than depicted in the post, but that didn’t hurt at all. Adding it to the rotation.
Total comfort/bum food….you can leave out the heavy cream for a dish you can have more often and it’s still delish
I love everything about this! It’s so delicious.
Do you think it would freeze well?
Freezing sounds like an amazing idea but unfortunately, we cannot answer this with certainty as we have never tried freezing this myself. Please use your best judgment for freezing and reheating.
Sooo yummy! I ended up omitting the heavy cream, just did a 1/2 cup of Fairlife milk, added red pepper, crushed red pepper and spinach! Delish! Thanks for a great recipe.
This was amazing!! All of us really enjoyed it. I did not have heavy cream on hand, so I threw in some velveeta in place of the cream and shredded cheese.
How big is the serving? 1 cup? I’d like to know for tracking purposes. 🙂 I can’t wait to try this!
Hi Kelsi! You would have to divide the full amount by 4 servings to get the serving size. Hope that helps!
Delicious and easy
I have made this a few times now and love it every time! Super easy to throw together, tasty, creamy, delicious, and saucy. I hate when there isn’t enough sauce, no problem with that here! Thank you!
Made this it was real good I replaced the beef with mild Italian Sausage Will make again
Wonderful! Another hit from Damn Delicious! Thanks!
I tried this recipe this evening and everything was drowning in liquid and kind of tasteless. I’m not exactly sure where I went wrong 🙁 Pretty bummed.
First of all , I love ALL of your recipes !! Second , this was AMAZING and EASY ! I used the whole 1lb. box of Medium Shells ( actually minus about 2 cups that I saved for my picky 3 yr. old Grandson ) and I added a bit of smoked paprika and some finely shredded Parmesan ! But there is a problem … I can’t stop eating it out of the pot ! I’m thinking that it doesn’t count though if you don’t actually use a plate or bowl , right ?!?! Thank you for another delicious meal that I can serve my family !
I made this for my boyfriend the other night. I doubled the recipe which turned out to be way more than I thought it would be, but it worked out perfectly – he loved it so much, he ate it for three days straight! Everything I’ve tried from your site has been amazing!!
I tried this recipe this evening and thoroughly enjoyed it. The only tweak I made was the addition of a tablespoon or so of chilli flakes. This will certainly become a dish that I cook regularly.
Great!
I made this tonight and it was amazing! My entire family loved it! Taste 10x better than Hamburger Helper! I used pasta shells made of chickpeas. So yummy!
I want to double the receipe. I need to make 16 oz of pasta because I am feeding seven. I am not concerned about the Hamburg but will it still turn out if I use a cup and a half of heavy cream and so on to double the receipe.
Debbie, I recommend doubling all ingredients for the most consistent results. 🙂
Made this a week ago and it was fantastic. When I told him what we were having, my husband said “sounds like homemade Hamburger Helper.” And it was – in the best possible way. This will become part of the regular rotation, maybe with some of the mods others mentioned.
It’s such a good one! Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you for another great recipe! Made this for the family tonight – LOVED IT! 🙂 Definitely putting this one in the regular rotation.
Sweet!