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.
Video
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Just make this for dinner. I CAN’T STOP EATING IT! It kind of reminds me of hamburger helper, but OH so much better. Husband loved it as well and said “Oh this hits the spot!” I skimped on the flour because I’m diabetic and shouldn’t be eating this much pasta in the first place. It still worked without it, probably a little less creamy.
This certainly does hit the spot! Glad you enjoyed it!
Hi Chungah, made this dish tonight for dinner. My husband had a temporary crown put on his tooth yesterday, so, we will be eating soft, easy to chew food for the next week. This pasta was the best ever. We both loved it. It will become part of the regular rotation
tooth issues or not. Thank you.
Oh awesome!
Made this last night. Everyone LOVED it. I used a 16 oz box of shells and there was plenty of sauce for that much pasta. So I question the 8 oz of pasta listed in the recipe. fF that was all the pasta used – it would be very soupy…more than the photo.
I substituted half and half for the heavy cream. Will definitely add this to our weeknight meal rotation, My son asked me if we can have it again tonight!
That’s awesome! Thanks for sharing.
Haha, I did exactly the same! Half and Half because I had no heavy cream and a full box of pasta. Still plenty of sauce. We loved it and I will make it again when the kiddos come home from college on their next break.
Great to hear!
I cooked this with local beef, homemade beef stock, fresh tomato sauce for the garden, and mozzarella. I’ll skip the flour next time and add a little starchy pasta water instead.
Great idea!
This was delicious!! It’s a perfect fall comfort food! (Except that it’s been 80 degeees here in Jersey!)
I actually made this when I came home from work, then placed it on the crock pot on low for about 2 hours while out at the kids activities. It was warm and ready to go when we got home. Thanks for another great recipe!
Hopefully it will cool down a bit for all of our Fall comfort foods! 🙂
Big fan of Damn Delicious but for some reason this missed the mark for me. Tasted a bit too acidic and had a lot of extra sauce. Thankfully I just spooned sauce into the hot pasta as needed otherwise it would have been swimming. I am confident that I can tweak this a bit to turn out a little creamier just surprised when I make a damn delicious recipe and it isn’t absolutely perfect. But tons of others loved it so this might just be the one outlier for our tastes. I’ll be sure to try again and let you know my thoughts!
I totally agree! Usually love damn delicious recipes but this one was definitely a miss. It had a lot of the canned tomato taste, so I tried to balance it out by adding a little sugar (which it helped a little). After a few bites though, the flavor became pretty one note. Maybe next time I’ll add some other spices to jazz it up!
So, I just made this for the second time and it was WAY better! Didn’t use any flour, cut in half the amount of tomato sauce and beef broth and kept the heavy cream about the same. I sauted the garlic and onion, then added in the beef (drained fat) added in the tomato sauce and brother and let it simmer for 30 mins. Spices I added while the meat was cooking was garlic salt, seasoned salt, pepper and hot paprikia. Then a good pinch of salt when cooking the tomato sauce. Added great extra sharp cabot cheese and we absolutely loved it. The super acidic tomato flavor was gone and it was the perfect amount of liquid to coat the pasta. This was a fantastic recipe but just really needed some tweaking for our tastes, but this is def going in the rotation so I am super glad I tried it a second time.
We love this recipe. I made it once with the Italian seasoning and it was awesome. The second time I substituted 1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika and 1/4 tsp ground chipotle powder for the Italian seasoning and it was a hit with the family. I have also successfully substitued blended cottage cheese for the cream and it worked well. Thanks for a very versitle and delicious recipe.
Great modifications!
Does anybody have any ideas on how well this might freeze in individual serving sizes? It’s the kind of recipe I would love to make a double batch of and stock my freezer with the rest.
How much sodium
Nutritional information is provided only for select and some new recipes at this time. However, if it is not available for a specific recipe, we recommend using free online resources at your discretion (you can Google “nutritional calculator”). Hope that helps!
We prepared this recipe tonight for supper. It is a good base for our taste, but next time I will cook the sauce for much longer before adding the cream and pasta.
This was a very nice meal.
Great simple recipe, i made substitutions because I don’t eat beef, I used ground turkey and chicken broth instead. I didn’t have onions or minced garlic I used onion and garlic powder and eliminated the heavy creame it was still very creamy and Good!
Great modifications!
Hi, I’ve been loving your recipes! I wanted to know if flour was necessary or if there was a sub I could use? My kids are allergic to wheat.
Thank you!
We, unfortunately, cannot give dietary advice when it comes to food allergies. As always, please use your best judgement when making substitutions and modifications.
This looks amazing! Do you use extra lean beef? Can you substitute for ground turkey or ground bison?
Yes and yes! 🙂
Chungah, I have to tell you this recipe is the bomb.com! It is soo good and so easy to make. I made it over the weekend and thankfully I put away a bowl of leftovers before my husband annihilated the rest of the pan. You hit it out of the park with this one!
Happy you enjoyed it!
Thank you for a beautiful creamy beef and shells recipe. Made this tonight for my family and the kitchen smells divine. It tastes even better.
Glad you and your family loved it!
This was so so creamy and delicious. It was super quick to make and just as good leftover. I don’t think I put a full 3/4 c of cream. I just stirred in until it looked right. Honestly, if you think the cream will not sit well with you it tastes great without too. (Yes I was tasting along the way). I’ll probably make it again this week.
Awesome!
Could you please add grams and celcius temperatures to your recipes ? it’s what we use in my country and it’s a lot of trouble trying to convert ingredients and temperatures. I love your recipes but most time I decide not to make them because converting is a lot of trouble for me !
Hi Mary! There are many free online calculators available online to convert cups to grams as well as fahrenheit to celsius. 🙂
Why serve immediately?
Because it is best served warm. 🙂
Well, you could serve it 2 mons. from now if you like. Make sure you sit it out on the counter the whole time! Come on, Martha the train is leaving the station!
Made this tonight for my picky eaters. They loved it!! It was so easy to make. The picture reminded me of hamburger helper, but I loved that it was all homemade and not from a box. It is definitely being added to our list of dinner options. Thank you for this recipe!
So great to hear!