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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Very tasty! I doubled the recipe but otherwise followed it and there’s no need to change a thing! I was afraid it’d be too saucy but love the generous sauce-to-pasta ratio. The flavors were extremely cheesy and beefy (it didn’t even seem like there was tomato sauce in the dish).
This was also very easy and quick to whip up, so I can see this being a weeknight dinner.
Can this be increased and put in a slow cooker
I like to make the recipe as written the first time I try it. This was so good an easy to make! We really enjoyed it just the way it is! Not sure that I would change a thing!! Thank you for sharing!!
This was sooo delicious.
Can you tell me what tomato sauce is? Is it the same as passata?
Tomato Passata is pureed, strained tomatoes usually sold in bottles. It’s 100% tomato, no additives or flavourings, but sometimes contains added salt. It’s uniform and smooth unlike crushed or chopped tomatoes, and makes gorgeously thick tomato-based sauces. It’s known as Tomato Puree in the US. So, not exactly the same as tomato sauce, which is thinner, but you could thin it out with more liquid, like extra broth, to about half as thick.
Could we just double the beef broth and heavy cream if I want to use 16 oz box of noodles?? Or just double beef broth…? Thanks!
Delicious!!
Very delicious
Excellent quick, easy recipe!! Can’t wait to try it Sunday for football dinner!!!
This recipe was really good. I always read reviews before I make the recipe to see what “complaints”are consistent. I added some Worcestershire sauce, peas, and parmesan. I did not have tomato sauce so I used stewed tomatoes instead. Overall I really enjoyed this recipe. Definitely a keeper.
This was fairly good and easy to make. Added cream cheese at the end. There wasn’t too much flavor and would be nice with more spices.
A family favorite, thank you! I now make it with ground Italian sausage instead of beef reduce the amount of Italian seasoning called for), and I don’t remove the meat when making roux; just mix the flour in with browned meat, onions and garlic and cook a couple minutes before adding liquids. SO YUMMY and EASY!
Just want you to know that I have been subscribed to your blog for YEARS and I turned this recipe vegetarian by swapping out the beef stock for veggie and the ground beef with Beyond Ground. It is my go-to crowd pleaser for all of my vegetarian friends and I just want to say a big fat THANK YOU! most of my saved recipes are from your blog 😀
Very easy and very good. Husband had seconds and thirds!
DELICIOUS! The depth of flavor. I used left over Vermont Cheddar cheese, some left over Colby and some cream cheese. I don’t think it matters the cheese as long as it’s freshly grated. It was super easy. But I would say in the recipe to save the drippings from the hamburger to sauté the onions etc. And then add the flour. That maybe what they meant but wasn’t clear.
Can you use regular milk instead of heavy cream?
You can make heavy cream just by adding unsalted melted butter to your milk 🙂
Love this recipe. I have made it with beef and Turkey but always sub chicken broth as we aren’t a fan of beef broth flavor. To keep it lower carb, we double the meat portion and cut back on pasta. Delicious.
Wow! This recipe is a keeper! I modified by adding red pepper flakes to spice it up and changed the shells for bucatini. It was a family hit and I will make it again and again! Thanks!
yo i made this so many times and man it just fills my belly real good, so tasty, fun and easy to make, u can sorta control the consistency if u freestyle a bit which is really cool, but yo. i love this pasta man
I was craving something creamy, beefy, and cheesy with pasta, and this recipe definitely satisfied my craving!! I had to make a few substitutions based on what I had on hand – I used chicken broth instead of beef stock and half n half instead of heavy cream. I also added a can of drained corn at the end. Delicious!!