Cheesy Taco Stuffed Shells made with jumbo pasta shells, salsa, cheese and taco meat are the perfect EASY weeknight meal that you can prepare ahead of time too!
Taco Stuffed Shells are an easy dinner of stuffed jumbo pasta shells with ground beef. With just the addition of taco seasoning, salsa and cheese your family will be asking for this dish to go in your regular rotation. This is the XL take on my super popular Cheesy Taco Pasta!
I love using either my Guapo’s Famous Fresh Pico de Gallo in this recipe or incredibly easy, store bought jarred salsa. You can also swap out the salsa in this recipe in a 1 to 1 ratio with my favorite Homemade QUICK Enchilada Sauce to make them taco stuffed shells with enchilada sauce.
If you’re looking for alternate to the shredded cheese or to mix things up a little you can absolutely make the taco stuffed shells with velveeta or nacho cheese as well. Even better you could just double the shredded cheddar cheese and have the ultimate cheesy taco stuffed shells.
Or if you want something a bit different you can also make my Mexican Stuffed Peppers with all the taco flavors but none of the pasta!
LOOKING FOR MORE GREAT CHEESY PASTA DISHES? LOOK NO FURTHER:
- Cheesy Taco Pasta
- Bacon Cheeseburger Hamburger Helper
- Pepperoni Pizza Hamburger Helper
- Philly Cheesesteak Hamburger Helper
- Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Bake
- Chicken Bacon Ranch Lasagna Roll Ups
Thinking of some other stuffed shells ideas?
- Pepperoni Pizza stuffed shells with marinara sauce, pepperoni and mozzarella.
- Chicken Bacon Ranch Stuffed Shells with the Cheddar Bacon Ranch Pinwheels filling and baked with alfredo sauce.
- Philly Cheesesteak stuffed shells with the Philly Cheese Steak Sloppy Joes filling but with double the cheese!
- Chicken Parmesan Stuffed Shells with chicken nuggets, marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese.
Tools Used in the making of these Taco Stuffed Shells:
Jumbo Pasta Shells: Make sure you buy these and not the large ones. Also, husbands may inadvertently think “large” is the right size…not saying mine did that! 😉
Jarred Salsa: Cuts the prep time down to just a couple of minutes and the flavors are still outstanding.
Taco Seasoning: I’ve use my homemade taco seasoning recipe if you’d prefer not to use a packet. This is the packet I’d recommend if not using homemade.
Ingredients
- 12 ounces jumbo pasta shells
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 packet taco seasoning
- 2/3 cup water
- 1 1/2 cups jarred salsa divided
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese divided
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Cook the pasta shells in a pot according to the directions on the box and drain.
- Add the ground beef to the pot and brown well.
- Drain the fat.
- Add the taco seasoning and water, stir and cook until water is gone.
- Stir in 1 cup salsa and ¾ cup cheese.
- Scoop into the jumbo pasta shells and top with the remaining salsa and cheese.
- Bake in a covered pan for 15 minutes.
Nutrition
I actually used 2lbs of hamburger is what I had frozen and thawed out a day ahead of time the in the fridge and was perfect! I think you need at least 2lbs. I threw the extra unused shells away. I mad the recipe exactly except used a full jar of salsa about 20oz jar mixing half into the meat mixture along with about a cup of the Mexican style cheese blend shredded cheese and after arranging in the pan sprayed with Pam cooking spray, I poured the last of the salsa over the top and sprinkled about another cup worth of cheese across the top over the salsa and covered and baked with foil about 30mins lost track of time but it came out perfect. Served with a side of corn. My 10yr daughter loved it and so did I!
I don’t think just a pound of hamburger is adequate and I recommend 2lbs.
Will be making this super easy recipe often from now on.
What’s amazing is it’s just a few ingredients and a super easy weeknight meal.
Serve with a salad or a favorite vegetable or some sliced avocados or a dollop of sour cream. Enjoy!!!
What size pan do you recommend using?
This tasted delicious! But you’re gonna need twice the ground beef to fill all the shells and be able to feed 6. I only needed to feed 3 so this worked out for me, and I’ll save the leftover shells I have for another recipe. Very quick and easy recipe, and a great way to use the jar of salsa wasting space in the back of my fridge!
These shells are so yummy. Just wondering if you can refrigerate until you are ready to cook them ?? Or freeze ahead of time
Yes you can!
Adding cream cheese to the meat mixture went SOOO perfectly. 10/10 recommend
Made this the other night and it was a HUGE hit. Definitely making this again
Can’t wait to try! Looks yummie.
I added corn and kidney beans and it turne out really good