Mama’s Deep Dish Pasta Bake a new staple for your kitchen recipe repertoire. They say an average family rotates about 7-10 recipes every month. This recipe is sure to be added to that list. Plus it has Mama’s secret weapon…hidden vegetables that will assure that no one will be complaining at the dinner table and everyone will getting their daily dose of nutrition!
My pickiest eater and my non-veggie eater went back for seconds with this one. The cottage cheese in this dish might have some turning their nose up. But I don’t like cottage cheese straight up, but paired with the Italian cheese it makes the cheese more creamier and richer and everyone will love it and not even notice.
Oh…and for those who take homemade lunches for work or school…this makes great leftovers! What else can I say? Let’s just get to the recipe already.
Mama’s Deep Dish Pasta Bake
Ingredients
1 package GF Pasta (I used Tinkyada Penne, you can use anything you prefer) ***See Note Below
4 Gourmet Pre-cooked Chicken Sausage Links, sliced into 1/4 inch slices ***
1 jar of spaghetti sauce or 3 cups homemade spaghetti sauce ***
2-3 Tbsp. olive oil
3-5 garlic cloves, minced (to taste)
2 zucchini’s, quartered and diced
1/2 red onion, diced small
red, yellow, orange peppers, diced Total about 1-1 1/2 cups diced small
1-16 oz package small curd cottage cheese
2 cups Italian Cheese Blend, or mozzarella cheese
1-2 Roma Tomatoes, sliced
1 cup mushrooms, diced (optional)
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cook pasta according to package instructions. Cook to Al-dente, then drain and rinse pasta well.
In a medium saucepan, cook sausage over medium heat
until the juices start to release and they get a slight brown crust on them. That is what give them extra flavor!
In a large deep-sided pan, heat olive oil over medium heat and add minced garlic. See my notes below on the pan I used. Saute garlic for about 30 seconds. Then add zucchini, onions, peppers and mushrooms, if using. Over medium heat allows veggies to cook down until soft and the onions are translucent.
After veggies are cooked down add spaghetti sauce. Stir in browned sausage slices. Add drained pasta. Mix well. (If you are not using a deep side skillet don’t add pasta yet. See instructions below for the rest of the steps.) Spread cottage cheese evenly over top of dish. Sprinkle with Italian or mozzarella cheese. Arrange sliced tomatoes on top of the cheese evenly.
Cover handles with double thickness foil, or if your pan is oven safe, skip this step. Place dish in oven and let the oven do the rest of the work. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until cheese is melted and begins to brown around edges.
Enjoy! Serve hot!
Ingredients Notes: Gourmet Chicken Sausage Links can be found in most grocery stores. They come in Italian blends or Mexican blends. My favorite is the Artichoke Gouda Blend. They are super yummy! They come pre-cooked, so all you have to do is heat them up. I have found that you can get 4x the amount for the same price if you purchase them at Costco.
Sweet Peppers You can use regular size or mini peppers. You can use one color or a mixture of all three. I like color in my recipes, so I used all three colors, red, yellow and orange.
Mushrooms are optional. If they are in my fridge, I add them. If not, I don’t. It is truly up to you.
Garlic If you aren’t a big garlic person just add two or three cloves. If you love garlic use 3-5 cloves. I usually will saute them in olive oil for about thirty seconds then add my veggies. However, if you forget this step, just add them directly to the spaghetti sauce.
Pasta In dishes like this I like the brand Tinkyada. It doesn’t get mushy, fall apart or disintergrate in my dishes. Cook to Al-dente. Which means they will be firm, not soggy. Drain pasta completely, especially when using Penne pasta, because penne takes a little longer to drain.
Pan I have a frying pan that has 4 inch high sides, so I was able to build this dish all in one pan. If you do not have a deep dish pan, then cook the meat and vegetables and and sauce, simmer until heated. Meanwhile, make a layer of the noodles in a 12×9 casserole dish. If you have a lot of noodles, then you may need two pans, or one larger one and one smaller one. Then add sauce mixture evenly over the top. Spread cottage cheese evenly over top. Add Italian or Mozzarella cheese and tomatoes. Works and tastes the same, you just have a long thinner pan versus a round thick sided pan.
Sauce Mama’s has a great Spaghetti Marinara Sauce Mine is more like a marinara so you might need 4 cups for this recipe. Just eyeball it.
I am totally bummed! I took a picture of it hot out of the oven but apparently they didn’t take on my phone. So you get the picture of the prebaked only. Take my word though it smells good, looks good and is delicious when all baked!
Mama’s Deep Dish Pasta Bake
- 1 package GF Pasta (I used Tinkyada Penne, you can use anything you prefer) ***See Note Below
- 4 Gourmet Pre-cooked Chicken Sausage Links, sliced into 1/4 inch slices ***
- 1 jar of spaghetti sauce or 3 cups homemade spaghetti sauce ***
- 2-3 Tbsp. olive oil
- 3-5 garlic cloves, minced (to taste)
- 2 zucchini’s, quartered and diced
- 1/2 red onion, diced small
- red, yellow, orange peppers, diced Total about 1-1 1/2 cups diced small
- 1-16 oz package small curd cottage cheese
- 2 cups Italian Cheese Blend, or mozzarella cheese
- 1-2 Roma Tomatoes, sliced
- 1 cup mushrooms, diced (optional)
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Cook pasta according to package instructions. Cook to Al-dente, then drain and rinse pasta well.
- In a medium saucepan, cook sausage over medium heat
- until the juices start to release and they get a slight brown crust on them. That is what give them extra flavor!
- In a large deep-sided pan, heat olive oil over medium heat and add minced garlic. See my notes below on the pan I used. Saute garlic for about 30 seconds. Then add zucchini, onions, peppers and mushrooms, if using. Over medium heat allows veggies to cook down until soft and the onions are translucent.
- After veggies are cooked down add spaghetti sauce. Stir in browned sausage slices. Add drained pasta. Mix well. (If you are not using a deep side skillet don’t add pasta yet. See instructions below for the rest of the steps.) Spread cottage cheese evenly over top of dish. Sprinkle with Italian or mozzarella cheese. Arrange sliced tomatoes on top of the cheese evenly.
- Cover handles with double thickness foil, or if your pan is oven safe, skip this step. Place dish in oven and let the oven do the rest of the work. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until cheese is melted and begins to brown around edges.
- Enjoy! Serve hot!