Dairy Free Spinach Stuffed Shells

I have several vegetarian recipes on dinner rotation and few handful go-to recipes for whenever I want to cook Meatless on Mondays.

But I have bookmarked so many recipes that I really should start trying making new ones.

This new recipe I  wanted to try intimidated me at first because I’ve never tasted the “real deal”, you know, the one with cheese and meat stuffing in it.

So why would I want to re-create something I’ve never had in the first place? Well, because of curiosity and to find out myself if tofu can really taste like cheese.  I already love tofu, but I’ve never prepared it this way. I’ve always eaten tofu in it’s block form, and not in it’s ricotta texture form.

I started with a block of tofu, then added garlic, herbs and nutritional yeast.

I blended away in my food processor.

Next, I added a whole bag of (defrosted & drained) frozen spinach.

Then blend some more.

Once I had the tofu mixture ready, it looked like ricotta and also had the same texture as ricotta.

I stuffed the tofu mixture in large shell pasta.

Topped the shells with my favorite marinara sauce and baked it for 30 minutes.

I saved half of the tofu mixture and made the dish again for lunch later in the week.

Dairy Free Spinach Stuffed Shells

(recipe slightly adapted from Fresh Taste Blog)

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons Garlic Gold oil (or olive oil)
• 1.5 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 16 ounces extra firm tofu
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 10 ounces frozen spinach, defrosted
• 1 box jumbo shells
• 1 jar of your favorite marinara sauce (my favorite is Trader Joe’s roasted garlic spaghetti sauce)

Directions

1. Drain the tofu and pat dry with paper towels. Crumble into the bowl of a food processor or high-speed blender along with oil, salt, oregano, garlic and nutritional yeast. Process on high until smooth and “ricotta-like”.
2. Add the defrosted spinach to the blended tofu mixture.
3. Cook shells in boiling salted water until el dente. Drain
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour about ½ cup pasta sauce into the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch pan. Stuff shells with 2 T of filling and place in pan, seam side down. Repeat until all shells have been stuffed.
5. Pour remaining pasta sauce over shells, cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Serve!

I really like this recipe.  I served it for dinner without telling Chris it was made of tofu, he couldn’t tell until I told him it wasn’t made with real cheese.

We love garlic and that’s why I added garlic infused olive oil and used roasted garlic sauce. You can definitely taste the garlic flavor but it wasn’t overwhelming at all.

Next time I make it, I’ll make sure I have plenty of  marinara sauce to top it with. The sauce helps keep the shell moist and also adds the flavor to the tofu.

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Have you ever tried blending tofu before?

Besides the recipe above, I’ve had silken tofu in my protein shake before.

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