Creamy Beef and Shells
This post may contain affiliate links. Please see our privacy policy for details.
A quick/easy ground beef recipe, this is a pasta dish that will be on your dinner table all week long! So creamy and so comforting!
Featured Comment
why i love this recipe
- All that cream sauce
- All that pasta, just collecting that creaminess
- The perfectly crumbled ground beef, again, soaking up every last drop of that creamy, heavenly goodness
- Made in 30-40 min, a true weeknight superhero
I cannot even begin to tell you how much of this pasta I ate on probably 13 different occasions. Well, first, I should tell you that no plating of any kind was involved here. Nope. This is clearly a straight-out-of-the-skillet type dinner. Just grab your fork and dig right in. Ugh, I can’t even talk about this anymore because now I need to make this for dinner again for the 14th time.
tips and tricks for success
- Use your favorite meat. Ground beef, chicken or turkey will all work very well here.
- Add in leafy greens. This is a great recipe to sneak in leafy greens for those picky eaters. Spinach, kale, collard greens, swiss chard, or arugula are all great options.
- Add the cream slowly. Always add the heavy cream at the very end, pouring very slowly to prevent curdling.
- Serve with crusty bread. Serve with all the homemade crusty bread for dipping, sopping and dunking!
- Freeze as needed. Let cool completely; portion into plastic freezer bags in individual servings, squeezing out any excess air before sealing. Lay the bags flat in a single layer in the freezer (this will help them freeze quickly). To reheat, thaw overnight in the fridge, reheating over low heat, stirring occasionally, until heated through.
what to serve with creamy beef and shells
Tools For This Recipe
Large cast iron skillet
Creamy Beef and Shells: Frequently Asked Questions
Not at all! Ground pork or ground turkey can be used instead of ground beef.
Tomato sauce, in the US, is tomato puree typically cooked down for a thick, smooth consistency with a relatively sweet flavor. Passata is simply uncooked tomato purée. You can use passata in place of tomato sauce, but it is not a completely equal substitute.
Heavy cream (or heavy whipping cream) has one of the highest fat contents with about 36-40% fat. Half and half or whole milk are suitable substitutes, but will yield a lighter result.
Yes! You can freeze the leftovers in individual freezer bags, thaw overnight, and reheat on the stovetop.
Creamy Beef and Shells
Ingredients
- 8 ounces medium pasta shells
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 pound ground beef
- ½ medium sweet onion, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 ½ teaspoons Italian seasoning
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 2 cups beef stock
- 1 (15-ounce) can tomato sauce
- ¾ cup heavy cream
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 6 ounces shredded extra-sharp cheddar cheese, about 1 1/2 cups
Equipment
Instructions
- In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta according to package instructions; drain well.
- Heat olive oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Add ground beef and cook until browned, about 3-5 minutes, making sure to crumble the beef as it cooks; drain excess fat. Set aside.
- Add onion to the skillet, and cook, stirring frequently, until translucent, about 2-3 minutes.
- Stir in garlic and Italian seasoning until fragrant, about 1 minute.
- Whisk in flour until lightly browned, about 1 minute.
- Gradually whisk in beef stock and tomato sauce. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until reduced and slightly thickened, about 6-8 minutes.
- Stir in pasta, beef and heavy cream until heated through, about 1-2 minutes; season with salt and pepper, to taste. Stir in cheese until melted, about 2 minutes.
- Serve immediately.
Video
Did you make this recipe?
Tag @damn_delicious on Instagram and hashtag it #damndelicious!
Can you substitute the tomato sauc for salsa???
What a great idea! But unfortunately, without having tried this myself, I cannot answer with certainty. But if you get a chance to try it, please let me know how it turns out! 🙂
Haven’t made this yet. I like planning my meals, so my question is, do you have any suggestions for side dishes? I believe I could eat an entire bowl of this on it’s own, but I would like to have a side dish.
My absolute favorite side dish is the garlic parmesan roasted potatoes. But please feel free to check out all of my side dish recipes here.
In the recipe you need to be more specific, at least in my opinion. When you said drain the ground beef and set aside I thought you meant set aside the grease. Then in the next step you go on to say add the onion. Which also gave no indication that this was supposed to be done in a separate skillet. It wasn’t until I got to the “whisk in flour” step and I’m trying to whisk flour into ground beef that I noticed I had messed up. Which I know I should have read through the entire recipe before cooking but I was in a hurry and had a thousand things going on and 2 kids on my thighs. I managed to save the recipe and it looks great. Were about to sit down and dig in. Hopefully I didn’t screw it up too badly.
Shannon, I’m sorry you had such difficulty with this recipe. Did you watch the instructional video? It should visually help you understand your confusions with this recipe. I also find it very helpful to read through a recipe in its entirety at least twice from start to finish before cooking.
I did the same thing, but it still turned out great
Agreed as noted in my review this recipe is not clear about what you are supposed to “add” the onion to and should be edited for clarity. Still love the recipe but please consider that it could be made clearer.
I’m so glad you enjoyed this recipe so much, Madison! It’s truly one of my faves!
The onion is added to the skillet (once the beef is set aside) and is now noted in the recipe for further clarification. 🙂
I did make 2 changes…instead of stock I added more tomato sauce (why take the time to reduce the sauce?). As well, I substituted the cream for 4oz of cream cheese(wish I needed to use up)…turned out amazing!! Will be making this again!
How long can i refrigerate this pasta ?
Will the sauce contents separate if i freeze and reheat it in the microwave
What a great idea! But as I am not an expert on food safety, I cannot really say with certainty. Methods for optimal food storage and shelf life should be based on good judgment and what you are personally comfortable with. Hope that helps, Minoshka!
If you don’t boil your cream, (milk) it should be okay. The separation we get when we reheat leftover mac cheese, or alfredo sauce in the microwave??? That? That comes from over heating the milk in your white sauces. If you do not let it boil, and take the extra few minutes to thicken it SLOWLY, it won’t separate, and turn into clumps of cottage cheese with melted butter when you reheat it.
Made this for dinner tonight and it was a big hit! I didn’t have pasta shells so I used penne and only had mild cheddar cheese. Also sprinkled some grated Parmesan on it and garnished with fresh parsley. Delish! Definitely a keeper!
Love this dish. Making it again tonight but unfortunately our cream went bad so we will try sour cream. Fingers crossed! Anyone else tried this?
Do you have this recipe for an Instant Pot?
Not at this time.
Omgoodness help! I am in the middle of making this now and i did everything according to recipe except i added the pasta to the sauce uncooked thinking it needed to cook IN the sauce! Do you if this will work or will i need to continuously add water! Ugh!
Oh no! I’m so sorry to hear that! You will definitely need to add water for the pasta to cook through. Hope you were able to salvage the dish!
OH MY GOD!! This is so good. It’s delicious. I just finished cooking this and I cannot wait for my hubby to come home and taste this delicious recipe. ❤️
THIS IS SO SO GOOD <3
We’re happy to hear it!
Can I use whole milk instead of cream and reduce it down? I am out of heavy cream.
Sure!
This was a really easy recipe to cook up, and that is coming from a busy mom who hates making new recipes! Kids loved it. Only change I made was ground turkey instead of beef, and maybe not enough cheese. Lol. Still delicious.
Delicious! Used ground turkey instead of ground beef otherwise no other changes. My 16 year old son loved it and ate such huge portions that I was afraid there wouldn’t be enough left for my husband (worked late). I love your recipes Chungah!
That’s great! We’re happy to hear that your family enjoyed it!
I made this tonight and even my two year old nephew, who is a picky eater, ate two bowls! Whoop whoop! I did add red chili flakes but this is such a great recipe! My family loved it. My best friend called it gourmet hamburger helper lol
Very good, quick dinner!
Made this for my family and they loved it. I only had chicken broth & white cheddar but it was still so delicious. And it came together so quickly. Thank you for this one!
We love hearing that! Thanks, Vanessa!
Absolutely amazing. So creamy and delicious. Followed the recipe exactly as is! Will be adding to my dinner rotation 🙂
Made this 3 times. This casserole is AWESOME!!! In my opinion in needs absolutely no “tweaking”.
This was very good, I am going to make with chicken today, should be fine…