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This pasta bake with a savory tomato “awesome sauce” and gooey pools of mozzarella makes for a perfect meal to serve a crowd.
This post was created in partnership with Muir Glen Organic. All opinions are our own.
What’s cozier than gathering around a pasta bake? This pasta bake is all gooey, cheesy comfort food. We’ve designed it as main dish for gathering around the table: and we’ve been making it for years for family and friends. It’s loved by many in our family for the awesome sauce: the tangy tomato sauce with a hint of savoriness from a secret ingredient. Keep reading for the recipe!
Making this pasta bake
This hearty pasta bake is fitting for sharing with family and friends in the chilly months ahead. It’s made with Alex’s “awesome sauce”, savory tomatoes simmered with garlic, herbs, a little butter and olive oil, and a secret ingredient: chopped green olives. They add a savory saltiness to the pasta bake along with some complexity, and if you chop them small enough, olive haters will never know. (It’s true, we made this for an olive-hating friend and she was pleasantly surprised.)
Mix the awesome sauce with some cavatappi pasta and top with gooey fresh mozzarella and Parmesan cheese, and you’ve got a pasta bake of belly-filling goodness. If you can’t find cavatappi, any short shape will do: penne or rigatoni would work well, and feel free to substitute gluten-free pasta for GF diets.
How to cook pasta to al dente
In this pasta bake, you don’t want to have mushy pasta! How to cook pasta to al dente? Cooking pasta too long is a common mistake in the kitchen. To cook pasta to al dente, check the package instructions and then start tasting your pasta a few minutes before that! (The timing listed on many packages results in rubbery pasta.) You want to catch the pasta right when it goes from crunchy to tender. It should still be slightly firm inside–but not crunchy! Pasta with just the right bite is essential to making this dish sing.
For the tomatoes
We love using fire roasted tomatoes because of their sweet flavor right out of the can: there’s no hint of bitterness! If you can’t find fire roasted tomatoes for this pasta bake, use the highest quality tomato you can find. We use fire roasted tomatoes in lots of our recipes because they are just that good! Here are a few more of our recipes with fire roasted tomatoes:
- Easy Pizza Sauce Recipe
- Gemelli Pasta with Fire Roasted Tomatoes
- Easy Marinara Sauce
- Baked Goat Cheese Appetizer with Tomatoes
- Pesto Grilled Cheese Dippers with Marinara
Looking for more pasta recipes?
Outside of this pasta bake recipe, here are a few more pasta recipes we love:
- Mushroom Pasta with Goat Cheese
- Penne with Pumpkin Pasta Sauce
- Gemelli Pasta with Fire Roasted Tomatoes
- 5 Delicious Vegan Pasta Recipes for Weeknights
- Italian Vegan Pasta Salad
- Creamy Pasta Marinara
- Grilled Vegetable Pasta
- Easy Pasta Puttanesca Recipe
- Cacio e Pepe
- Stovetop White Cheddar Mac and Cheese
This pasta bake recipe is…
Vegetarian. For gluten-free, use gluten-free pasta.
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Pasta Bake with Awesome Sauce
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 6 to 8 1x
Description
This pasta bake with a savory tomato “awesome sauce” and gooey pools of mozzarella makes for a perfect meal to serve a crowd.
Ingredients
- 1 pound cavatappi pasta, or other short pasta
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1 shallot
- 6-ounce dry weight can ripe green olives (pitted)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 28-ounce can Muir Glen Organic crushed tomatoes (original or fire roasted)
- 1 15-ounce can Muir Glen Organic diced tomatoes (original or fire roasted)
- 1 tablespoon aged balsamic vinegar
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- 2 teaspoons dried basil
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon honey (optional)
- 4 cups baby spinach leaves
- 8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced into disks
- ½ cup Parmesan cheese, grated
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F.
- Boil 6 quarts water with 2 tablespoons kosher salt. Add the pasta and boil until al dente, about 6 to 7 minutes, then drain. Pour into a 9” x 13” pan and add a glug of olive oil to prevent it from sticking.
- Meanwhile, peel and mince the garlic and shallot. Drain the olives and finely chop them.
- In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and shallot and sauté for 2 to 3 minutes until fragrant. Add the olives, tomatoes and their juices, balsamic vinegar, butter, nutmeg, oregano, basil, red pepper flakes, kosher salt, pepper, and honey and stir to combine. Simmer gently for 15 minutes. Taste and adjust salt as desired. Add the spinach leaves and cook another 2 to 3 minutes until tender.
- Pour the sauce into the pasta in the baking dish and mix to combine. Top with slices of fresh mozzarella cheese and grated Parmesan cheese. Bake until the cheese is golden, about 15 minutes. Allow to cool slightly before serving.
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: Italian
Keywords: Pasta bake, Baked Pasta, Tomato Sauce, Cavatappi,
I can not wait to try that awesome sauce!
This awesome sauce looks awesome. Yum.
Yes, food is comfort. No denying it. And it is good. Blessings to you both.
I like the sounds of Alex’s “awesome sauce”. This baked pasta is definitely going on my holiday meal plan. Hope you guys have some quiet moments together to breath and be this holiday season.
This was delicious! The sauce is rich and complex but next time will half the red pepper flakes.
This has become our go-to baked pasta, and now anytime I make any kind of marinara sauce for pasta, I add olives & balsamic. The salty/tangy are the perfect additions to the sweetness of tomato sauce. We love this one!
★★★★★
Ooo I am so excited to hear this! And so is Alex, the mastermind behind this recipe :) So glad you enjoyed it and it’s a great vote of confidence for the secret “awesomeness”. :)