These Shell Pasta Stuffed with Pumpkin Ricotta are the ultimate winter food: creamy, cheesy, and incredibly delicious. With a homemade vegan ricotta spread, pumpkin, and vegan cheese, you’ll love this recipe!
This recipe is a small, autumnal twist on my Sage-Ricotta Filled Shell Pasta Recipe. To create an autumnal and wintry twist on this delicious mussel noodle recipe, I opted for a creamy pumpkin filling.
WHY YOU SHOULD TRY THIS SHELL PASTA RECIPE
Autumn feel-good food: The giant noodles are filled with a creamy pumpkin filling, baked with a delicious sauce and cheese. Sounds like the perfect dish for cold weather and pumpkin season, doesn’t it?
Texture: The contrast between the slightly crunchy baked mussels and the creamy filling and sauce is incredibly delicious. This texture makes the recipe very special.
Simple Recipe: The recipe is surprisingly simple despite the fact that it looks so good. It’s perfect for preparing a large casserole dish for guests or for a cozy dinner for two.
WHAT INGREDIENTS DO YOU NEED FOR THE SHELL NOODLE RECIPE?
- Shell Pasta: I recommend using large pasta shells as they are easier to fill.
- Pumpkin puree: For the recipe, you need pumpkin puree. You can easily cut a pumpkin of your choice into pieces and bake it in the oven until soft. As soon as the pumpkin is soft, you can let it cool down and puree it finely in a blender or hand blender.
- Spices: For this pumpkin shell pasta recipe, I use cinnamon, cumin, salt, and pepper. These spices go great with pumpkin and also make it a delicious winter recipe.
MORE PASTA RECIPES
Ingredients
- 24 shell pasta (120g)
Vegan grated cheese
Pumpkin Filling:
- 200g tofu
- Pumpkin puree from 1/4 pumpkin (soft baked and mashed)
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp salt
- Some pepper
- 30ml of water
Pumpkin Sauce:
- Pumpkin puree from 1/4 pumpkin (soft baked and mashed)
- 180 ml vegetable broth
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Prepare the pumpkin filling: crumble the tofu and put it with the remaining ingredients in a high-performance blender (or mix all the ingredients in a bowl with an immersion blender) until you get a creamy consistency and all the ingredients are very fine. Put the cream in the fridge so it can set a little longer.
- Prepare the sauce: Put all the ingredients in a tall container and puree until you get a smooth sauce. Put it aside.
- Preheat the oven to 180ºC (convection).
- Pre-cook the shell pasta: It is best to take a large pan and bring salted water to boil. When the water is boiling, carefully add the shell noodles. Make sure they don’t break and that each noodle has some space. Now let the noodles simmer for about 4 minutes. They should still be a bit hard because they’re still being baked, but still soft enough to fill them.
- Drain the noodles very carefully and let them cool down a bit.
- Now prepare an oven dish and pour the sauce into it so that the whole bottom is nicely coated.
- Fill each shell noodle with the pumpkin filling and place them side by side on the sauce. It’s best to use a teaspoon. If you have any leftover filling, you can store it in the fridge and use it as a spread.
- Sprinkle some vegan grated cheese over the pasta and bake for 15-20 minutes until the cheese is nicely browned.
Have you tried the recipe?
Then I would be very happy about a good review. Feel free to tag @bloomingwithflavors on Instagram. That’s how I see your awesome creation! ❤️