My mom always made it with a pound of shell pasta, a pound of ground hamburger or ground Turkey, and a jar of prego. When I got married I learned that my husbands family makes it totally different - they also use the shells and the ground beef, but instead of prego, they use 2 cans of tomato soup, and a can of condensed cheddar cheese soup. I was very skeptical of this. It sounded gross. But he wanted me to make his family’s version for him. And to be honest - once you get over the weirdness of it - it’s pretty darn good!!!! I really don’t think you can go wrong making this. Even when it’s bad it’s still good.