Do You Need To Parboil Manicotti Before Baking?

If lasagna and stuffed shells had a love child, it would be manicotti. It's one of those Italian dishes you need to try at least once. In the classic manicotti recipe, the long, ribbed pasta tubes are stuffed with a creamy ricotta filling, topped with tomato sauce and cheese, and baked to perfection. But a constant point of debate, much like with lasagna, is whether the pasta should be parboiled before it goes in the oven. Some recipes say yes, other recipes say no — we decided to ask an expert.

Matthew Cutolo is a third-generation Italian-American chef at Gargiulo's Restaurant in Coney Island, Brooklyn. "I always cook the pasta in boiling water first until it is softened but still firm to the bite," chef Cutolo told us. You definitely don't want to overcook the pasta, as that will make it harder to fill later in the process and ruin the texture of the final dish. It only takes a few minutes until the manicotti are cooked al dente — a good rule of thumb is to cook them slightly under the recommended time written on the package. "The pasta will finish cooking when it is baked in the oven," Cutolo reassured us.

It's true that certain recipes for manicotti skip the parboiling part. As chef Cutolo put it, "While some companies make manicotti shells that require no boiling, I'm a traditionalist and believe they cook better when boiling first." Cutolo highlighted to us that boiling the pasta first ensures that it cooks evenly. When you skip the parboiling, the manicotti has to cook in the sauce while it's in the oven — this means you might have to add more sauce and could end up with bits of undercooked pasta. Sometimes it's simply better to stick with tradition.

That doesn't go for the filling, though. That's the part of the recipe where you have more room for experimentation — you could swap out ricotta for a plant-based version, like we did in our vegan tofu manicotti, add minced meat to the filling, or upgrade the savory notes with sun-dried tomatoes. Whatever option you go for, remember that the easiest and most mess-free way to fill the pasta tubes is with a piping bag.