Savory Meat Filled Manicotti

Savory meat-filled manicotti is the dressed-up baked pasta you make when you want Italian-American comfort food without the lasagna marathon. Tubes of manicotti hold a savory ground chicken filling bound with eggs, bread crumbs, and a generous helping of mozzarella and parmesan, then everything gets blanketed in marinara and baked until the cheese on top blisters and browns.

Using ground chicken instead of the traditional ground beef or pork keeps this lighter without sacrificing flavor. The bread crumbs and eggs serve as a binder that keeps the filling tender and sliceable instead of crumbling apart when you cut into the tube. The grated parmesan adds salty depth that ground chicken alone wouldn’t supply.

The trick to stuffing manicotti without splitting the tubes is cooling the cooked pasta on a single layer of foil. Stacked or warm pasta sticks together and tears the moment you try to pipe filling in. A small spoon or piping bag (a snipped zip-top bag works) makes the job fast and clean.

Layering a thin film of marinara on the bottom of the pan before adding the filled tubes prevents the pasta from cementing itself to the dish. Cover and bake 45 minutes, then uncover for the last 10 to brown the cheese on top.

Chef Tips

• Boil the manicotti 1 minute less than the package says, the tubes finish cooking in the sauce
• Use a piping bag or a zip-top bag with a corner snipped to fill the tubes cleanly
• Spread the sauce in a thin even layer first, mounds of sauce push the pasta around and create empty pockets
• Let the casserole rest 10 minutes after baking so the filling sets and slices cleanly

Variations

• Swap ground chicken for ground turkey, Italian sausage, or a mix
• Stir a cup of sauteed spinach into the filling for a chicken-florentine version
• Add a layer of ricotta cheese under the filled tubes for an even creamier bake