One of my favorite midweek pasta bakes – my whole family loves it and there is not much prep. Once the pasta bake is in the oven, you can make a salad or set the table and then it’s time to eat.
I’ve used this recipe before as the base for a cold pasta salad. Tonight we used it as the base for a hot chicken dish. I used up some stale sourdough bread (leftover from my purchase from Labour of Loaf at the local Farmers Market in Hartlepool) for the breadcrumb and cheese topping. So easy to make and absolutely delicious!
Oh….YUM. Even as I was putting this in the oven I knew it would be our new favorite pasta bake. My only changes were to double the tomato paste and to add some (thawed) frozen spinach to up the nutritional aspect. My son and I were even looking forward to the leftovers!!
I’m going to be making this for a crowd, so in a test run yesterday, I prepared the dish without cooking the pasta- I just added the extra cup of water and let it all get happy overnight. Baked it today for an hour at 375 and it was delicious. Pasta was perfectly done! So save yourself a step and make it the day before!
Made this for dinner tonight, as a student I loved it because it was cheap and pretty simple to make. I gave it a kick by adding chilli powder, chilli flakes and some paprika.
Ingredients
1 (16 ounce) package penne pasta
1 tablespoon olive oil
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Ingredients
1 (16 ounce) package penne pasta
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 (6 ounce) cans tomato sauce
2 tablespoons tomato paste
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheesesalt and freshly ground black pepper
1 pinch white sugar
1 pound cherry tomatoes, halved
1 1/4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 small bunch fresh basil, finely choppedAdd all ingredients to list
Directions
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add penne and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender yet firm to the bite, about 11 minutes. Drain, reserving 1 cup of cooking water.
Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat and cook onion until soft and translucent while penne is cooking, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook an additional 30 seconds. Stir in tomato sauce and tomato paste and cook until slightly reduced, about 5 minutes. Add cream and Parmesan cheese and season with salt, pepper, and sugar.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease a baking dish.
Stir some pasta cooking water into the sauce and add cooked penne. Remove from heat and stir in cherry tomatoes, 1/2 the mozzarella cheese, and basil. Pour penne mixture into the prepared baking dish and cover with remaining mozzarella cheese.
Bake in the preheated oven until cheese is melted, about 20 minutes.
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