Conchiglioni Rigati Stuffed with Bolognese

Conchiglioni Rigati are large pasta shells, which I think look amazing. In Italian cuisine, ragù is a meat-based sauce that is commonly served with pasta.

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Baked Bolognese Pasta

Each pasta shell is stuffed with a rich meat sauce that's been slowly cooked with red wine with tomatoes and other good things.

Topped with a white sauce and finished with a good amount of Parmesan cheese is delicious and well worth the fairly long cooking time.

Béchamel sauce, also known as white sauce, is made from a white roux and milk. It has been considered, since the seventeenth century, one of the mother sauces of French cuisine. It is used as the base for other sauces.

Béchamel Sauce

When making Béchamel sauce it is important to cook the flour in the butter first, otherwise your sauce will taste floury. This will ensure your sauce is smooth and without lumps.

Serve with a nice salad, for good health!

While you're here take a look at Pork Ragu with Rigatoni Pasta, it's kinda similar but ready in around 40 minutes.

The only real amount of time taken is softening the onions and carrots.

Have you tried this recipe? Please leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ star rating in the recipe card below!

Bolognese Stuffed Pasta Shells

pasta,conchiglioni,rigati,meat,bolognese,sauce,recipe

pasta,meat,main,dinner

Italian

Yield: 4

Author: Jan Bennett

Conchiglioni Rigati Stuffed with a Ragu Bolognese

I know it looks like a lot of faffing about and the ingredients list is a long one, but this is well worth giving it a go.

Prep time: 15 MinCook time: 2 H & 10 MTotal time: 2 H & 25 M

Ingredients

• One large or two medium-sized ovenproof dishes
• 400g Conchiglioni Rigati pasta (large pasta shells)
• 200g Parmesan, freshly grated
• For the Meat Sauce:
• 2 onions
• 1 carrot
• 1 stick celery
• 4 fat cloves of garlic
• 80g of either smoked streaky bacon or pancetta
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree
• 5 or 6 sun-dried tomatoes drained from their oil (or rehydrated dried ones)
• 30g butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 250g minced beef
• 250g minced pork
• 1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes – including the juice
• 160ml red wine
• 3 bay leaves
• For the Béchamel sauce:
• 100g butter
• 70g plain flour
• 560ml milk
• salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• freshly grated nutmeg

Instructions

1. Peel the onions and carrots and chop them into big cubes. Do the same with the celery. 
2. Peel the garlic cloves and put them all including the bacon into a food processor and finely chop to almost a paste. 
3. Don’t bother washing the processor up just yet, hold up on that, you’ll need it again in a minute.
4. Heat the butter and oil in a large pan and fry this mixture along with the tomato puree over low heat and cook for about 10 minutes or until soft.
5. Now add the beef and pork and stir it about a bit until it browns evenly.
6. While this is cooking nicely add the sun-dried tomatoes to the food processor and give them a good whizz up so you end up with a tomato paste.
7. Add this paste to the meat and give everything a good stir.
8. Add the tomatoes, red wine and bay leaves. Stir well and bring to a boil.
9. Now turn down the heat and cover with a bit of kitchen foil or a lid but only partially cover.
10. Let this mixture cook for about on a low heat for about 1 and half hours stirring now and then. It shouldn't go dry unless you have the heat too high.
11. If it does you will need to add a teeny bit more wine or water if you must.
12. For the Sauce:
13. Melt the butter in a saucepan then add the flour and stir and cook for a few minutes. Take off the heat briefly, and whisk in the milk with a handheld balloon whisk.
14. Now put back on the heat stirring all the time.
15. Once the sauce is bubbling leave it for a few minutes to cook stirring all the while. Season with salt and pepper and turn down the heat and cook until slightly thickened.
16. You want a fairly running sauce. When that’s done remove from the heat and stir in some freshly grated nutmeg.

Preheat your oven to 200C/400F/ Gas 6

1. Put a large pan of slightly salted water on to boil ready for your pasta. When it’s boiling add the pasta shells. Cook them until they are almost done (al dente), you don’t want soggy pasta.
2. Once cooked, drain the pasta shells and let them cool a bit.
3. One at a time, fill each shell with a good spoonful of the meat sauce (bay leaves removed) and place meat side up and side by side in your baking dish.
4. Keep going until you've no room left in your dish or dishes if you're making two lots.
5. Now pour the white sauce over and in between the shells. Sprinkle the top generously with grated Parmesan, you can mix in some grated cheddar too if you fancy.
6. Cover loosely with foil and cook for about 25 minutes - if you let the sauce get cold before you made this then it will, of course, take a bit longer to heat through.
7. Now remove the foil and cook for another 10 minutes until it’s cooked through, piping hot and the top is bubbling, golden and crispy.

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