Pesto and Chicken Stuffed Shells

As I mentioned earlier, I have an insane amount of basil on my patio so I have a lot of pesto on hand!  We've been enjoying all of the pasta with the pesto and tonight I found another dish to use it in.  I found this recipe on Pinterest, from Joelen's cooking blog and I made some slight modifications. It was simple to make and delicious!  


Of course, I used homemade pesto since I had some on hand.  I also added mascarpone cheese since I had some leftover from a previous recipe.  Be careful with the salt because depending on how you make or use pesto, there may already be enough salt in the dish.  I added pasta sauce to the bottom of the baking pan and drizzled on top to keep the shells moist.


Pesto and Chicken Stuffed Shells


Ingredients


12-16 jumbo pasta shells
water for boiling pasta
4oz cream cheese, softened
4oz mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese + 1/4 cup for topping
3 tablespoons prepared pesto (homemade or store bought)
2 cups shredded rotisserie or cooked chicken
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 jar pasta sauce, your preference
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• In a large pot over high heat, boil water and prepare pasta shells as directed on package. Cook pasta shells only until al dente. The pasta will finish cooking when the dish is baked. Drain the pasta shells and set aside.
• In a large bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients, except the 1/4 cup of cheese for the topping.  Spread a thin layer of pasta sauce on the bottom of a casserole dish.  Fill the pasta shells with the filling and place in a baking dish.  
• Drizzle pasta sauce over the shells.  Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup of cheese over filled shells.  Bake shells uncovered for 30 minutes or until shells are bubbling hot and cheese melts.