Manicotti

I made this pretty much just as shown in the recipe with a few minor adjustments. I added half a bag of chopped baby spinach to the ricotta mixture. Previously, I taste tested the generic store brand ricotta vs Galbani whole milk. There is just no comparison. If you can manage it, pay the extra for the name brand ricotta! For the pasta sauce I used Mezzetta Roasted Garlic. This dinner came out delicious, and we are looking forward to leftovers tonight!

This is a great recipe, but I used it only as a guide. I made a full on from scratch Bolognese, added some hot Calabrian peppers for a kick, did two layers of the pasta and way, way more cheese than any human should. Cooked at 370 degrees covered for 35 minutes and then the 15 uncovered. Let set for 10, then boom! Smelled amazing. Looked amazing. Tasted amazing.

This is a fantastic recipe. I followed the instructions almost exactly, other than adding some sliced mushrooms to my homemade marinara sauce. Tastes like something I would get from a restaurant. I also used a plastic storage bag to pipe the cheese and can vouch it works very well. When you are cooling your pasta, lay them out on a baking sheet so they don't collapse or stick together. Will definitely be making this again... maybe even stashing a few in the freezer

I really struggled using a Ziplock bag to pipe the filling in. The corner of the bag split weirdly and the filling just wasn’t flowing out properly. I ended up trying to stuff the filling in with a spoon, which wasn’t fun. Ended up with not enough filling for all of the manicotti. Luckily I’m only cooking for three. Next time will try to use a pastry bag.

I stuff the manicotti pasta tubes raw and they cook in the sauce beautifully. Much easier !

I've been making manicotti for over 40 years using water based crepes. Absolutely exceptional. When I first made them for my Italian mother, she declared it was the best "pasta" she'd ever tasted. As for the marinara sauce, I recommend a fast and easy homemade sauce (from the old Time/Life Italian cookbook). The secret is to use canned tomatoes in their juice, NOT in puree. Takes 35 minutes and is so much better than the jarred sauces.

My family recipe is similar but I add cinnamon instead of nutmeg to the filling.

The homemade marinara and using a quality ricotta such as Polly-o is the key. This was a great weekday meal.

I made these with uncooked manicotti. Much easier to fill. The filling wasn't liquid enough to use a piping bag so I used a spoon. For sauce I used a large can of whole tomatoes that I blended with a stick blender and added some marinara sauce we already had and about 1/2 a cup of water. This covered the manicotti.

I learned to stuff manicotti when I had a broken finger in an open cast. Messy but otherwise perfect.

Very delicate as far as Italian goes. We used flour tortillas. Easy to wrap and baked up nicely. Easy.

We used fresh spinach which I sautéed and drained in lieu of parsley also seasoned the ricotta mixture with salt and pepper. I boiled the noodles until al dente as I didn’t like the idea of watering down the marinara. Topped the manicotti with mild sausage that I browned and cooled. Poured marinara over the top of the browned sausage and topped that with mozzarella. Thanks to the person who suggested covering the dish with parchment and then foil, no cheese left behind. Husband loved it.

Seconding the use of crepes, which I learned from Neapolitan grandmother.

I found it nearly impossible to stuff the manicotti with a 1 quart freezer bag after cutting off a corner of the bag. I can only say it was like trying to stuff a straw with mashed potatoes. I decided to try an alternative. I cut each of the 14 pieces of manicotti open (lengthwise) to open them up, flattened them on the kitchen counter and piped each with sufficient filling. I then closed them and carefully placed them in the 9x13 baking dish. They came out fine. You'd never know I cheated!