Italian Sausage Manicotti- an easy recipe for manicotti stuffed with Italian sausage and cheese and covered with tomato sauce. This Italian favorite makes a great family meal.
There’s 4 types of cheese in this manicotti for maximum flavor. A container of chive and onion cream cheese adds not only flavor, but lots of richness. Ricotta cheese, cream cheese, mozzarella cheese, and Parmesan cheese combine to make this a wonderfully cheesy pasta dish. Since it is so rich and filling, 1 to 2 manicotti are plenty per person, especially if you serve it with garlic bread and a salad.
I love using sausage for this recipe because it is already seasoned and tastes so good.
What to serve with Italian Sausage Manicotti:
- A green salad with Creamy Italian Dressing.
- Steamed Broccoli
- Pepperoncini Garlic Bread
Recipe Notes:
- I use a jar of spaghetti sauce, but you could use a homemade sauce.
- If you want to add in some vegetables, mix a box of frozen chopped spinach into the filling. Be sure to defrost it first and squeeze the excess water out.
- Use either sweet or hot Italian sausage. If you use spicy sausage, you may want to cut down on the crushed red pepper flakes unless you want a lot of heat.
- Can be assembled ahead of time and refrigerated until you are ready to bake it. Add 10 to 15 minutes to the cooking time.
- If you can’t fit all the filling into the manicotti shells, place the excess on top of the manicotti or tuck it around the sides of the manicotti.
- Leftovers will keep in the refrigerator for 3 to 5 days.
Italian comfort food doesn’t get any better than this.
Try These Other Italian Favorites:
- Italian Meatloaf
- Baked Sausage with Italian Sausage
- Slow Cooker Spaghetti Casserole
- Chicken Patty Parmesan
- Italian Sausage Rigatoni with Spicy Cream Sauce
Italian Sausage Manicotti
Ingredients
- 1 pound Italian sausage
- 1/2 medium yellow or sweet onion, diced
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepepr flakes
- 8 ounces chive and onion cream cheese
- 1 cup ricotta cheese
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 1/4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
- 10 manicotti tubes, cooked according to package directions
- 1 (24-ounce) jar pasta sauce
- 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.
- Cook and crumble Italian sausage in a large nonstick pan. Once you have it broken apart, add the onion. Cook until the sausage is no longer pink.
- Add garlic, Italian seasoning, and crushed red pepper flakes and cook 1 minute.
- Turn heat to low and add cream cheese. Stir until melted. Remove from heat.
- Let cool slightly and then stir in 3/4 cup of mozzarella cheese, ricotta cheese, and pepper.
- Stuff the mixture into the manicotti shells. You can either use a spoon or fork to push it in or you can transfer the mixture ot a large ziptop bag and snip the corner and pipe it in.
- Pour about 1/2 cup of sauce in the prepared baking dish and spread it evenly. Place the filled manicotti tubes on top of the sauce.Pour remaining sauce on top of manicotti.
- Cover and bake for 25 minutes.
- Sprinkle with remaining mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese. Bake uncovered for 10 more minutes.
Excellent flavor, but doubled the onion and Italian seasoning! Pipe it in with a plastic zip lock and two people is much easier.
8 oz. And one cup, are the same thing, but a odd way to write the recipe.