This High Protein Baked Manicotti is the perfect weeknight meal or meal prep option that everyone will love. It has all of the flavor of a classic baked manicotti with a few ingredient swaps to up the protein in each serving.
Weeknight-easy
Make ahead
You’ll Learn: How to balance acidity and sweetness for a better tomato sauce
Worth It: It’s a satisfying, protein-forward option that actually keeps you full
Bonus: Comfort food that is ready to reheat
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Great for meal prep – This easy baked manicotti recipe with meat is great to have on hand for an easy lunch to reheat. Plus it makes the perfect comfort food.
- Delicious high protein meal – Each serving has over 35 grams of protein to make sure you feel totally satisfied!
- Easy to make – Most of the time spent on this recipe is cooking in the oven. It’s one of my favorite easy dinner ideas. You just need to brown your beef and stuff the noodles to bring this recipe together. It’s the perfect Italian food for a large crowd.
Serving Suggestions
Because this baked manicotti is so high protein, I love to add a simple green on the side. You could make air fryer brussels sprouts or air fryer asparagus to keep it easy.
If you would like to make a simple salad to go with it, you could top it with green dream dressing or this balsamic vinaigrette. For a bit of bread to go with your cheesy pasta dishes, I love serving some garlic bread.
Ingredients
- Manicotti noodles – the manicotti shells are the perfect tube shape pasta shell for your cheese filling
- Cottage cheese – the cottage cheese adds creaminess and protein to your baked manicotti and takes the place of a typical ricotta filling
- Ground beef – use browned ground beef to make your meat filling
- Salt – a bit of salt intensifies all of the flavors in this manicotti pasta recipe
- Italian seasoning – I used an Italian seasoning blend, but you could also create your own mixture of your favorite Italian herbs
- Garlic powder – the garlic powder supplements the Italian seasoning for the best flavor in your stuffed manicotti
- Marinara – use your favorite jarred spaghetti sauce or make homemade red sauce for this recipe
- Shredded mozzarella cheese – you can use pre-shredded mozzarella or grate your own
Ingredient substitutions
In place of ground beef, you could use ground turkey, ground pork, or ground chicken, or Italian sausage. If you use a leaner meat like turkey, you may want to add a bit of extra-virgin olive oil to the pan when cooking.
The cottage cheese adds protein to your meat sauce, but you could also use different kinds of cheese. Ricotta cheese would be delicious in your cheesy filling.
Feel free to top your baked manicotti with extra cheese like quarter cup parmesan cheese, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and fresh herbs like fresh basil.
How to make
Step 1: Prepare Manicotti and Cottage Cheese
Pre heat oven to 350F and grease a casserole dish.
Over high heat, boil noodles in salted boiling water for 2 minutes less time than package directions for al dente instructs. Drain and set aside in a strainer or on paper towels (Image 1).
Blend cottage cheese until smooth and place in a large bowl (Image 2).
Step 2: Brown the ground beef
Brown ground beef in a skillet over medium heat, drain any excess oil and season with teaspoon salt, Italian seasoning and garlic powder (Image 3). Allow to cool slightly before mixing with the blended cottage cheese (Image 4).
Pour a thin layer of the 1-2 cups sauce into the casserole dish and reserve the remaining marinara sauce. For the easiest way to fill the large tubes of pasta, use a large plastic bag or a piping bag to pipe the cheese and beef mixture into the bottom three-quarters of each noodle of cooked manicotti (Image 5).
Step 2: Assemble the casserole
Arrange the filled manicotti in a single layer in the baking dish and top with the remaining marinara sauce. Sprinkle manicotti with the 1.5 cup of mozzarella cheese on top of the pasta sauce (Image 6) and cover manicotti with foil.
Bake covered on the oven rack in the middle position at 350F for 40 minutes. Remove the aluminum foil and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes to brown the cheese. If you would like it browned more, heat broiler and watch closely to avoid burning. Cook times can vary depending on your oven.
Storage and Freezing
Once prepared, allow the baked manicotti to cool completely and cover dish or transfer to an airtight container. Then, store the manicotti in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. It is delicious the next day.
To reheat next time, take the leftovers out of the fridge and reheat in an oven, toaster oven, or in microwave.
Check out these other Casserole Dish recipes
You can find the full recipe below. If you make this recipe, please rate and review it in the comments, or share it with me on Instagram!
You can find the full recipe below. If you make this recipe, please rate and review it in the comments, or share it with me on Instagram!
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Recipe
High Protein Baked Manicotti
Ingredients
- 8 oz manicotti noodles
- 2 cups cottage cheese
- 1 lb lean ground beef
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp italian seasoning
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 24 oz marinara
- 1.5 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F and grease a casserole dish.
- Boil pasta in salted water for 2 minutes less than package directions instructs. Drain and set aside.
- Blend cottage cheese until smooth and place in a large bowl.
- Brown ground beef in a skillet over medium heat, drain any excess oil and season with salt, italian seasoning and garlic powder. Allow to cool slightly before mixing with the blended cottage cheese.
- Pour a thin layer of the marinara sauce into the casserole dish. Use a large plastic bag or a piping bag to pipe the cheese and beef mixture into the cooked manicotti.
- Arrange the filled manicotti in the casserole dish and top with the remaining marinara sauce. Top with the mozzarella cheese and cover the casserole dish with foil
- Bake covered at 350F for 40 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes to brown the cheese.
Nutrition Information
This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.
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