Buy Now → No Boil Baked Manicotti Recipe
This No Boil Baked Manicotti Recipe is a Sunday night dinner worthy meal that’s easy enough to throw together on a busy weeknight! The secret to getting this manicotti recipe on the table in just over an hour? Don’t boil the manicotti noodles before filling them! That’s right friends! You can prep this cheesy vegetarian dish in just 10 minutes!!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 60 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Yield: 14 manicotti 1x
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Diet: Vegetarian
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 24 oz. (3 cups) spaghetti sauce
- 1 cup water
- 8 oz. uncooked manicotti noodles
- 2 cups chopped fresh spinach
- 16 oz. whole milk ricotta cheese
- 12 oz. shredded mozzarella
- 5 oz. shredded Parmesan cheese
- 1 egg
- 3 tablespoons basil pesto
- 1.5 teaspoons dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- Kosher salt
- fresh cracked pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Mix spaghetti sauce and water until well combined. Set aside.
- In a large bowl combine chopped spinach, ricotta, a third of the mozzarella, Parmesan, egg, pesto, oregano, garlic powder, and a couple large pinches of salt and pepper.
- Transfer to a piping bag (a gallon Ziploc baggy works well too).
- Spread half the spaghetti sauce mixture in an even layer in the bottom of a 9×13 inch baking dish.
- Cut the tip off your piping bag about the width of the manicotti noodles. Fill each noodle with filling.
- Nestle filled manicotti into the baking dish. Then pour the remaining sauce in an even layer on top of the noodles.
- Top manicotti with remaining shredded mozzarella. Cover pan tightly with foil and bake for about 50 minutes or until the noodles are just about cooked through.
- Remove foil and bake for another 5-10 minutes or until the noodles are al dente. Broil on high for a minute or so if desired.
- Let rest for a few minutes before garnishing and serving. Garnish with fresh chopped parsley and grated Parmesan and enjoy!
Notes
- If you’re using jarred spaghetti sauce, pour your spaghetti sauce into a medium bowl. Add 1 cup water to the jar, twist the lid back on, and gently shake to loosen any extra sauce. Then pour the water from the jar into the medium bowl and mix to combine the sauce and water. This will ensure that you clean every last bit of sauce out of the jar!
- Don’t worry if it looks like too much sauce when you assemble the cheese manicotti. Trust me it’s not! The moisture from the sauce/water mixture is what’s going to cook the noodles so the baked manicotti needs to be real saucy in the beginning. After about an hour in the oven, a lot of the sauce will be absorbed into the pasta.
