Baked pasta with meat sauce and cheese: one dish, the whole family
Pasta boiled half-firm, folded into a rich meat and tomato sauce, covered with sour cream and cheese and baked into a golden, bubbling crust. The pasta finishes in the oven, drinking up the sauce, which is why it is cooked briefly and the sauce made looser than seems right. One dish feeds six, and the second day is better still.
Your own work in that: 30 min.
- Meat sauce 20 min
- Pasta 10 min
- Baking 35 min
- Resting 10 min
Step by step
0 / 6 done
Make the meat sauce
Brown the meat in the oil over high heat 6 minutes, breaking it up with a spoon; it should brown, not turn grey. Add the finely chopped onion and grated carrot, fry 5 minutes, add the garlic and tomato paste, fry a minute. Pour in the passata and stock, season with oregano, salt, pepper and sugar. Simmer 10 minutes.
Ingredients: 500 g minced pork and beef · 1 pcs onion · 1 pcs carrot · 3 cloves garlic · 500 ml tomato passata · 2 tbsp tomato paste · 200 ml stock · 2 tsp dried oregano · 2 tbsp oil · 1 tsp salt · ½ tsp black pepper · 1 tsp sugar
TipThe sauce should be noticeably looser than for spaghetti: in the oven the pasta drinks part of it. Too thick a sauce makes a dry bake.
Meat browned, then vegetables and passata
Cook the pasta very al dente
Heat the oven to 190 °C and butter the dish. Cook the pasta in salted water 3 minutes less than the packet says: it should still be hard in the centre. Drain, don't rinse.
Ingredients: 400 g penne or fusilli · 200 g sour cream, 18 % · 250 g hard yellow cheese · 20 g butter
Three minutes short, hard in the centre
Combine
In a large bowl toss the pasta with the meat sauce and half the grated cheese. Taste and season: baking dilutes the flavour, so it should be bold now.
Pasta, sauce, half the cheese
Assemble and top
Tip into the dish and level it. Dollop the sour cream over the top and spread it with a fork, then scatter the rest of the cheese.
Sour cream in dollops, cheese on top
Bake
Bake 35 minutes at 190 °C, until the cheese is golden and bubbling at the edges. If the top colours too fast, cover with foil for the last 10 minutes.
A golden, bubbling crustRest before cutting
Leave 10 minutes: the bake sets and can be served in squares rather than spooned. Serve with a cabbage or cucumber salad. Keeps 3 days in the fridge; reheat covered.
Ten minutes and it cuts cleanly
Before you start
Vegetarian
Instead of meat, 400 g mushrooms fried over high heat and a can of red kidney beans. Make the sauce the same way.
With béchamel
Instead of sour cream, 500 ml béchamel (50 g butter, 50 g flour, 500 ml milk, nutmeg): closer to lasagne, creamier.
For the freezer
Assemble without baking and freeze in a dish that is both freezer- and ovenproof. Put it into a cold oven straight from frozen (ceramic and glass crack with sudden temperature changes), set it to 190 °C and bake covered 60 minutes, then 15 minutes uncovered, until piping hot in the centre.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
