Vegetable Pasta Bake

Vegetable pasta bake in an oven dish

An easy vegetable pasta bake with a cheesy topping that you’ll love

This is a vegetable pasta bake that your whole family is going to love, comfort food at its best!

Our mushroom veggie pasta bake is an ideal weeknight meal, it takes just 10 minutes of prep time and then just 35 minutes in the oven to cook.

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An easy to make vegetable pasta bake in a total time of just 45 minutes – ideal for a busy household.

Chestnut mushrooms

If you want to make this pasta bake vegetarian, then make sure the gruyere cheese you use is suitable for vegetarians.

This easy to make veggie pasta bake is a great option if you are having meat free days.

At 535 calories per serving, it’s a delicious vegetarian dinner for the whole family to enjoy – proper comfort food without any of the guilt.

Each serving of vegetable pasta bake provides 26g protein, 56g carbohydrate, 24g fat (of which 13g is saturated fat) and 5g fibre.

Close up of vegetable pasta bake

Do you need to cook pasta before baking it?

Not always, no. It depends what dish you are cooking and what the instructions on your packet say.

For example, if you are using pasta sheets or pasta noodles, in a lasagne recipe, it’s quite common not to cook the pasta before putting it in the oven.

For a dish like this vegetable pasta bake, you could use uncooked pasta if you ensure you have enough pasta sauce but it will take longer to cook.

We definitely recommend you cook the pasta before you put it in the oven but make sure you don’t overcook the pasta either.

Take a look at the manufactures instructions, if they say it’s a 10 minute cook time, then cook it for 5 to stop it going mushy in the oven.

Dried penne pasta in a white bowl

What do I put in a vegetable pasta bake?

Cheese. You definitely need cheese in your bake, you want it nice and cheesy.

In our pasta bake meal, we have used gruyere cheese but you could easily use parmesan or mozzarella cheese.

Other types of pasta bake dishes use ricotta, feta and cheddar cheese.

If you want to make our vegetable pasta even more cheesy then just increase the amount of cheese you use, although we think it’s pretty perfect as it is.

Asian shitake mushrooms ready to use

You can put all different types of vegetable ingredients into a pasta bake, in this particular bake, we’ve used cauliflower and mushrooms.

We chose oyster mushrooms for their fleshy meaty texture, we also added shitake and chestnut mushrooms too.

Other vegetables that you could consider are spinach, peppers, courgette, broccoli, green beans, chopped tomatoes, pesto, peas and even a butternut squash.

We’ll be adding more recipes for easy vegetable pasta bakes soon that use different vegetables and sauces, so please keep checking back on the site.

Raw cauliflower florets

How to make pasta bake sauce

There are many ways to make pasta bake sauce, some recipes for pasta bake use tomato sauce but we don’t for this particular bake.

Instead of tomato sauce we use a delicious creamy cauliflower sauce which is a lovely tasty light sauce,

You’ll find the full recipe for the pasta bake sauce below but we use use garlic and roasted cauliflower and add in milk.

We give it a good blitz in the blender and you have the perfect pasta bake sauce.

Garlic to use in cooking recipes

Tips for making a vegetable pasta bake

  • Make sure you preheat the oven, once you’ve built your pasta bake you don’t want to be waiting around for the oven to heat up!
  • It sounds obvious but set your timer – we’ve heard too many times of people completely forgetting about their pasta, only remembering when the smoke alarm goes off!
  • We recommend undercooking your pasta. The last thing you want is mushed pasta in your bake. Whatever the manufacturers recommendations are, then cut that by approximately five minutes.
  • Make sure you use enough sauce. There’s nothing sadder than a pasta bake that’s dry.
  • Chop your vegetables fairly small, make sure that they are all pretty much the same size and this way, you can be sure that they all cook evenly.
  • Turn your oven dish around half way thorough the cook time so that you get an even cook.

Can I make vegetable pasta ahead?

Yes you can, you can make it the day before.

Build the pasta bake but don’t put it in the oven, cover it and place it in the fridge overnight.

But just make sure you take it out of the fridge and for approximately an hour before you cook it. This makes it a really fantastic family dinner.

Can you freeze vegetable pasta bake?

Yes, this vegetable pasta freezes well and you can store it in the freezer for approximately 4 months. Just ensure that it’s fully defrosted before you reheat it.

Homemade garlic bread fresh out of the oven

What can you serve with pasta bake?

You may be able to see in the photos that we served our cheese bake with homemade garlic bread (we’ll be adding the recipe for this soon, so keep checking back because it’s delicious).

Garlic bread is just a wonderful accompaniment, especially when it’s topped with parmesan or mozzarella cheese.

A great dish to serve with vegetable pasta is a light green salad would work very well indeed.

Vegetable pasta bake with garlic bread

How easy is it to make vegetable pasta bake?

Seriously easy, this is one of those recipes that you’ll wonder why you haven’t cooked it before!

As long as you have a blender to make the sauce, then this dish is plain sailing!

A good baking dish that is oven proof is crucial for this pasta dish.

We use a stoneware dish but you could use a Pyrex dish if you haven’t got a stone baking dish.

We’d love to hear from you if you’ve made our cheesy vegetable pasta bake recipe for your family.

Please do leave a comment below and let us know how you got on!

For our international visitors that use cups, then welcome! If you press the toggle button under the list of ingredients, then everything will be converted for you in an instant.

Enjoy!

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VEGETABLE PASTA BAKE

An easy to make vegetable bake with a delicious cheesy topping that the whole family will love!
Prep Time10 minutes
Cook Time35 minutes
Servings8
Calories535
Course: Main course
Cuisine: Italian
Author: Jane Chapman | Splash of Taste

Utensils

Oven proof dish
2 x Saucepans
Large frying pan or wok
Baking tray
Chopping board
Sharp knife

Ingredients

  • 18 oz Pasta we used penne
  • 1 Large cauliflower
  • 3 cups Vegetable stock
  • ¾ cup Milk
  • ¼ cup Olive oil
  • 1 tsp Fine sea salt
  • 2 Cloves of garlic
  • 24 oz Mushrooms we used a mix of oyster, shitake and chestnut
  • tbsp Butter
  • 12 oz Gruyere cheese
  • ¾ oz Fresh sage

Instructions

  • Preheat your oven to 200°C
  • First you'll need to prepare your vegetables
  • Wash and cut your cauliflower into florets
  • Peel the garlic
  • Chop the mushrooms into slices, lengthways
  • Now bring a pan of water to the boil and place the pasta in it and cook for approximately 5 minutes – you don't want it cooking thoroughly
  • Once that's done, drain it, you don't want it to continue to cook in the water, and lightly drizzle it with oil and then set aside
  • Now it's time for the cauliflower, bring a pan of water to the boil and then put the cauliflower in it and once again, cook for 5 minutes before draining the water from the pan
  • Meanwhile add a tablespoon of butter to your frying pan or wok crush the garlic in and sauté.
  • Now you'll need your blender because you need to put the semi cooked cauliflower in it, along with 475ml of the vegetable stock, sautéed garlic, milk, oil and salt
  • Blitz it until it's lovely and smooth, if you can't fit it all in, then do it in batches
  • Then in your frying pan or wok heat 3 tablespoons of butter and then add in the lovely mushrooms and sauté them until they are a wonderful golden brown colour
  • Once the mushrooms are done then add in all of the pasta followed by the beautiful cauliflower sauce and the rest of the stock and give it a good old stir so it's evenly distributed
  • Then add all of the ingredients to your oven dish and bake it uncovered for 25 minutes. When you take it out of the oven, give it a stir to combine all of the ingredients again
  • Serve on a plate and if you'd like, grate some extra cheese over the top
  • Enjoy!

Nutrition

Calories: 535kcal | Carbohydrates: 56g | Protein: 26g | Fat: 24g | Saturated Fat: 13g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 67mg | Sodium: 1022mg | Potassium: 700mg | Fiber: 5g | Sugar: 7g | Vitamin A: 868IU | Vitamin C: 37mg | Calcium: 513mg | Iron: 2mg

Disclaimer

Please note that nutrient values are estimates only. Variations can occur due to product availability and manner of food preparation. Nutrition may vary based on methods of origin, preparation, freshness of ingredients, and other factors.

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