Pasta bakes are a reliable recipe that pretty much every chef should have in their repertoire, whether they are a professional or just a regular home cooking enthusiast.
Not only are they easy to pack with flavor, but they’re also some of the easiest recipes to make, full stop! And if you’re trying to feed a family, that ease makes them a very appetizing recipe to learn, both figuratively, and literally!
However, some pasta bake recipes can feel quite boring to make, which is why some people tend to look down on this type of meal.
However, all you need to get a great pasta bake is the right recipe, some good ingredients, and the ability to read!
Here, we provide all the pasta bake recipes that you could need to keep this dish interesting and refreshing for cooking yourself!
1. Quick Cheesy Chicken Pasta Bake
Starting us off with a classic version of this dinner-table staple, we have a great first recipe to get us started with for this list.
Chicken might just be one of the most popular ingredients to use when it comes to recipes for pasta bakes, and this particular dish is a great example.
Chicken might not have tons of flavor on its own, but it absorbs flavors very nicely, meaning that it is perfect for a cheesy and saucy recipe like this.
Plus, as lean meat, you won’t have to worry about excess carbs or calories making their way into this ingredient.
Plus, this recipe takes only 30 minutes to make, so you’ll always have a great recipe up your sleeve when you need to make dinner in a rush.
2. Primavera Pasta Bake (No-Boil)
One of the things that can drag the cooking time for a pasta dish out is needing to cook and boil the pasta for the pasta bake.
However, some recipes, like this one, manage to get a little creative with their cooking instruction and can help take that extra cooking time out of the equation.
The trick with this recipe is to make sure that you cook your pasta in plenty of extra sauce, allowing the pasta to boil and cook at the same time that the recipe is baking.
If you’re looking for a hearty dish that won’t need to pan and a pot to prepare and cook with, this is the dish for you!
3. Chicken Spaghetti
When it comes to pasta bakes, the most popular shaped kinds of pasta that are used are often pieces that are hollow or twisted, such as fusilli, penne, or rigatoni. But we very rarely see spaghetti noodles used in these recipes, do we?
Well, this recipe sets out to change that, creating a chicken pasta bake that is unlike many others that you’ll find out there.
It combines the easy eating of these noodles with a deliciously cheesy and creamy sauce!
4. Braised Beef Shin & Porcini Pasta Bake
Porcini is a staple dish of many Italian recipes, especially when paired with beef in a rich, creamy sauce.
Sounds like that would make a pretty good filling for a pretty amazing pasta bake recipe!
Make sure that you slow cook the beef shin that the recipe recommends, to get that perfect melt-in-your-mouth feel that it should!
5. Cheesy Pesto & Chicken Pasta Bake
Pesto is another staple Italian flavor that is often regularly served in pasta dishes, but you don’t tend to see it too often in many past bake recipes.
Well, luckily for our taste buds, this particular pesto-pasta partnership solves that problem for us, combing the two with some juicy chicken to create a dish that is sure to become a new house favorite!
6. Shrimp Scampi Pasta Bake
Although seafood is very popular to add to a pasta bake dish, it’s often limited to very specific types of fish like salmon or tuna. Where is the love for other seafood, like shrimp scampi?
Well, it turns out that that love is here, in this pasta bake recipe!
If your taste buds have a love for the sea, this is the recipe that you should try treating them with!
7. Baked Ziti
Ziti is a specific type of shape that pasta can be formed into, being a long, thin strip of pasta with a very small whole. They’re very popular in many cheesy recipes when you don’t have macaroni pasta handy!
Because of its hollow shape, this makes it perfect for including in a pasta bake to help shake things up a little.
Make sure your sauce is nice and meaty for this one!
8. Cauliflower Carbonara Bake
Speaking of macaroni…
Carbonara is a staple dish of many households up and down the country and has a lot in common with pasta bakes.
So, it’s not too much of a jump to turn this dish into a rather hearty and filling pasta bake dish, complete with perfectly prepared cauliflower.
Perfect for both quiet nights and busy week evenings!
9. Creamy Tomato-White Bean Pasta Bake
Beans are a recipe that you’ll find plenty popular around the world, often for the same filling and flavor-absorbing reasons that pasta is.
So why has no one tried to make a bean pasta dish before now?
Make sure that your tomato sauce is perfectly rich and creamy!
10. Ragù Lasagna
Okay, so technically lasagna and pasta bakes are different dishes. But frankly, we’re pretty sure that it is just that, a technicality!
So, have fun cooking up this particular pasta bake dish that turns lasagnas from a difficult dish into a simple 6-step recipe to try.
11. Pepperoni Pizza Lasagna Roll-Ups
If we’re talking about iconic Italian foods, you can’t get more famous than either pasta and/or pizza.
Combining the two allows you to enjoy the chewiness and toppings of a good pizza, with the filling and delicious sauce of a good pasta bake!
12. Super Green Chilli Tuna Mornay Pasta Bake
How have we not had a tuna pasta bake recipe yet on this list? Well, we’d better change that!
F you’re looking for the best pasta type for this dish, we would recommend using any kind of shell-shaped pasta to allow it to fill with the creamy seafood sauce that you’ll be prepared for!
13. Alfredo Broccoli Baked Pasta
Alfredo might be one of the most popular styles of pasta dishes to make, so you’d better believe that we’re combining it with the accessibility and implicit of a good pasta bake recipe.
Plus, this manages to make broccoli taste amazing, a fact that will please parents of fussy-feeding children across the country!
14. Baked Ravioli
Ravioli is yet another very popular Italian recipe, with these little packs being filled with so much delicious filling, while still being easy to bake.
This means that, if you’re looking to make a filling bake, then all you’ll need is a good sauce like this recipe recommends!
15. Baked Gnocchi Alfredo
Okay, so maybe we’re stretching the definition of what a ’pasta’ bake is with this gnocchi-using recipe. But they are used similarly in meals
Plus, one bite of this Alfredo-style gnocchi, and you won’t even care about those little differences!
16. Beef And Rigatoni Pastitsio
This particular dish is inspired by a classic Greek pasta pie recipe that is very popular across the region, combining a lot of Eastern Mediterranean flavor into a dish that will melt in your mouth the moment you take a bite into it.
Plus, it’s a beef pasta bake recipe. What more could you want?
17. Chicken Caprese Pasta Bake
What can we say? Chicken and pasta are a combo that will never go out of style, as long as we love to cook!
With a serving size that makes sit perfect for big family gatherings, as well as a cooking time that means it can be easily made in a flash, this will quickly become a staple of your repertoire.
18. Cheesy Beef & Macaroni Casserole
What separates pasta bakes and casseroles? Besides spelling, of course!
While we’re having this debate, let’s enjoy a classic fusion of the two in the form of this delicious cheesy beef and macaroni casserole dish, complete with delightful melted cheesy toppings!
19. Sour Cream Noodle Bake
You wouldn’t normally expect sour flavors and pasta bake to go together.
But with the right ingredients and direction, you can create magic with recipes like this!
20. Mac ‘N’ Cheese Lasagna
We’re back at it again with the macaroni pasta bake recipes, this time creating another incredibly simple lasagna dish that anyone will be able to make!
21. Sausage Alfredo Pasta Bake
Sausage meat is a very popular dish in many Italian-inspired recipes across the country, especially when it is mixed with the right kind of herbs and spices.
Try adding your favorite sausage meat to this recipe, and see how it turns out!
22. Pizza Pasta Bake
There’s more than one way to combine pizza and pasta it turns out!
But whatever the process or recipe is, the result is the same: An amazing recipe that the whole family will love!
23. 3-Cheese Mushroom & Kale Skillet Lasagna
If you’re looking for a recipe that is perfect for vegetarians to enjoy, then you’re going to love this next dish!
Using ravioli instead of typical lasagna sheets, you’ll be surprised just how well it works!
24. Chorizo, Onion & Thyme Breadcrumbs Baked Ravioli
It’s kind of weird that there are no spicy pasta bake recipes, are there?
Well, almost.
If you love recipes with a little extra heat in them, this chorizo-infused recipe might just be what you’re looking for!
25. Super Fast Italian Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta Bake
If you thought the other recipes that we had covered had a quick cooking time, just wait until you get a load of this dish!
26. Baked Tortellini
Tortellini often gets confused for ravioli but is its distinct style of pasta and stuffing dish.
So you can imagine how good a pasta bake made from this type of pasta might taste, especially with plenty of cheese toppings!
27. Chicken Alfredo Stuffed Shells
Once again, we turned to the little tasty miracle that is the stuffed shell for this recipe.
With such a creamy Alfredo sauce that is created with the instruction here, you need appropriate pasta to hold all that juicy goodness!
(of course, if this kind of pasta isn’t handy, another small cut type will do. It might just be a little messier!)
28. Braised Beef Cheek Lasagna
If you’re looking for the best result with this particular recipe, make sure that you give it the appropriate amount of time to slow-cook.
Does it take a long time to prepare? Yes. Is it worth the wait?
Absolutely!
29. Veggie Lover’s Baked Rigatoni
We haven’t covered that many vegetarian-tailored recipes on this list, have we?
With plenty of cheesy garlic flavors and a ton of mushrooms for a beautiful texture, you have a dish that pretty much everyone is going to love once they have a mouthful of this hearty main course!
Frequently Asked Questions
Do You Need To Boil Pasta Before Putting It In A Bake?
You may have noticed that some of the dishes that we have covered will explicitly state that you should or shouldn’t boil the pasta before adding it to a baking tray, leaving some home cooks a little confused as to if they should or shouldn’t cook the pasta before adding it to a dish.
So, which is it?
This will generally depend on the recipe that you are using and following. Most recipes will usually leave cooking the pasta out of their main steps, so it’s very much a task that you’ll have to figure out.
Generally speaking, the best policy is when given no extra instructions, that you should cook the pasta until it is mostly soft, before taking it out of the boiling water.
This will allow the pasta to continue cooking while it is in the bake mix, as well as allow it to absorb as much of the sauce as possible.
So, match your pasta against how much sauce your recipe uses. If you have a lot of excess sauce, barely cook your pasta, for example.
Overcooking tends to leave your pasta overly soggy and breaks apart easily, which is generally something to avoid for most people
How Long Can Pasta Bakes Be Saved For?
Generally speaking, well-preserved pasta bakes will last anywhere from 3 to 5 days, before completely spoiling, though this will usually depend on the ingredients used in the dish. Fish will not last as long as meat or roasted vegetables, for example.
Make sure that the container is well-sealed, and is placed in the refrigerator for good measure.
Why Does My Pasta Always Turn Out Burned Or Dry?
You may find that many times you have cooked a pasta bake that has too many pieces that are either dry and hard to bite into, or just outright burned and inedible. So what’s this about?
Well, pasta won’t burn if it is sufficiently coated in enough sauce, so chances are that your recipe doesn’t contain enough sauce to stop the pasta from burning, or perhaps just has too much pasta in it.
Make sure that you are using the right amount of ingredients and, if you are still burning your pasta, try adding a little more ingredients to the sauce to address this problem.
Final Thoughts
So, which of these simple, yet amazing recipes will you try first?
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