If you are a fan of Italian-American cuisine, we are sure you have a soft spot for manicotti, which is the pasta recipe that’s made with pasta pipes filled with your desired filling. It’s evident that manicotti is one of the most delicious recipes out there but it’s hard to cook since the shells break down. So, if you have the same issue going on, we are sharing more tips with you!
How To Fill Manicotti Shells Without Breaking Them?
It’s needless to say that manicotti is reserved for special occasions because they are hard to make, given all the time it takes to make them. In addition, it’s a pain to fill them because you have to be extra careful about not breaking the shells. Honestly, the manicotti shells can fall apart and split whenever you are trying to add the filling. So, if you have to fill up the manicotti tubes without breaking them, you can follow the following methods;
1. Use Pastry Bag
The pastry bags are obviously reserved for filling the pastries and applying icing to the cake. Having said that, it’s one of the easiest ways of filling the manicotti, even if you are working with cooked manicotti tubes. For this purpose, you have to fill up the pastry bag with the filling of your choice and cut out a bigger hole (the size of the pasta tube’s hole) on the pastry bag’s tip, and fill it in. In addition to these specialized pastry bags, you can use the storage bag (the food bag), add the filling, push it on one side, and make a hole on the top. In addition, it’s better to push the filling in into the center and then add from the other side to ensure the filling doesn’t ooze out.
2. Use A Teaspoon
You must be wondering how the teaspoon’s eating end will suffice the size of the pasta tube. This is because the spoons tend to be too wide to fit within the pasta tube. For this purpose, you have to use the longer end of the spoon to fill in the filling. In addition to a teaspoon, you can also use a butter knife and it’s actually better since it can clean away the excess filling. So, use the butter knife or a longer end of the teaspoon to insert filling into the manicotti.
3. Fill It Uncooked
It’s needless to say that filling the manicotti tubes is a challenge because you have to prevent them from sticking and collapsing. That being said, you can fill these tubes when they are still uncooked because it’s too rigid to be broken. However, if you have to fill the uncooked pasta, make sure that you use a half-cooked filling to ensure you don’t end up overcooking the filling while baking the manicotti shells/tubes.
4. Roll It
If you don’t want to use any of the above-mentioned methods, you can always boil the straight pasta sheets, put in the filling, and roll them up. This way, manicotti shells will be filled with the filling rather than getting broken or falling apart.