Freezer Friendly Recipes: Baked Pasta Recipe


freezer friendly recipes baked pasta

Freezer Friendly Recipes: Baked Pasta Recipe


Baked Pasta is an Easy Timesaving Dish

I love pasta, and my favorite pasta dishes are baked ones.  Full o f meats, cheeses, and sauce, these dishes are easy to make, and if I’m going to make one I might as well make two and freeze one!  They are life-saving when you’ve have a hard day, something’s gone wrong, or you’ve just plum forgotten to take something out for dinner.  All you need to do is pop a pan of Baked Pasta in the oven and you are ready to take on your evening.  Everyone coming to your table will be happy when they see a steamy pan of Baked Pasta!

Change Up the Ingredients in Baked Pasta

One of the things I love about Baked Pasta is I can swap out ingredients to please whomever is going to be eating it.  I usually put ground beef and sausage in it, but sometimes I add turkey pepperoni or even chicken for a fantastic flavor.  The cheeses can be anything you like but I normally love a blend of Italian cheeses, or just plain old mozzarella.  Ricotta cheese, sometimes deemed Italian cottage cheese, works well in Baked Pasta too.  I season it with some garlic salt, parsley, and basil to jazz it up a bit.  Even the pasta can be changed out to whatever you like.  Do you have a pile of leftover spaghetti?  Use it!  Try mostaccioli or penne too.  Just about every pasta works in this dish!

 Baked Pasta Ingredients

2 lbs pasta

2 lbs ground beef

1 lb Italian sausage, sweet or hot

1 large tub Ricotta cheese

2 t dried basil

2 t dried parsley

1 t garlic salt

2 jars pasta sauce, any flavor you like

4 C shredded mozzarella

2 aluminum lasagna pans

 

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook the pasta until it’s nearly done.  Drain and set aside.

While the pasta is cooking, brown the meats together until no pink remains.  Set aside.

Place the ricotta cheese into a bowl and mix in the basil, parsley, and garlic salt.

Pour about a quarter of one jar of pasta sauce into the bottoms of the pans and spread around.

Spoon 1/6th of the pasta into each pan.

Top with 1/6th of the meat and ricotta cheese.

Repeat with both pans until no more ingredients remain.

Top the pasta with pasta sauce, spreading half of what is left on each.

Sprinkle with the shredded mozzarella.

Wrap with plastic wrap and aluminum foil.

Label and freeze for later or bake at 375 degrees F until pasta is hot, sauce is bubbly, and cheese is melted, about 1 hour.

Easy to Freeze: Baked Pasta Right from the Freezer


It’s easy to get Baked Pasta ready for the dinner table.  Remove any plastic wrap you might have frozen it with, then recover with some aluminum foil.  Bake in a heated 425 degree F oven for about an hour and a half, until the sauce is bubbling and the cheese is melted.  Take off the foil and bake for another 5 minutes, until the cheese just turns golden brown.  Your Baked Pasta will be hot and delicious with little effort!

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2 Comments

  1. Karri
    February 8, 2014
    Reply

    I am kind of confused about how you assemble this dish. It says to use 1/4 of the sauce on the bottom and then spread 1/6 of the pasta and then 1/6 of the cheese and repeat the layers and top with remaining sauce spreading half on each.

    If you are using 1/4 of sauce and 1/6 of noodles and cheese, how do you end up with enough sauce? Is the sauce not a layer you repeat?

    This sounds really good and I want to make sure I assemble it correctly.

    • February 9, 2014
      Reply

      Hey Karri- yes you do repeat the sauce in the layer. Sometimes if I run out, I will grab another jar of sauce. I don’t always use exact measurements when I cook, I tried to give exact measurements here. If you feel that you are running out of sauce and you want to stick to 2 jars, you can not repeat a layer. But I recommend grabbing more sauce if you can. I usually always have leftover sauce in my fridge from other pasta dishes that works out great when I need a little extra.

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