New Recipe: Baked Tortellini

This recipe is dead simple. Make it as complicated as you want. Use jarred sauce, make your own from scratch, or take a jar of sauce and church it up yourself. Whatever.

Frozen pasta, fresh pasta, heck, you can even use the shell stable/dried tortellini. You could use ravioli if you wanted.

You can make this Vegetarian, Vegan, Chock Full o’ Meat, Gluten-Free, it’s up to you.

This is one of those recipes that’s a big hit at potlucks too. It’s pretty inexpensive, and we always have the ingredients in one form or another to make a batch.

Baked Tortellini

Ingredients:

• 6-8 cups of Red Pasta Sauce.  I usually make a big batch of this sauce and portion some out just for this recipe. If you use jarred sauce, I recommend  you add 3-4 cups of veggies (carrots, onions, celery, bell peppers, zucchini, chopped/diced tomatoes, etc.)
• 22-30 ounces of Tortellini/Ravioli, cooked per the package directions (this will probably take a couple packages)
• 2 Cups Italian Cheese blend

Directions:

1. Cook the pasta per the package directions. Drain.
2. Pour pasta sauce into a baking dish (I use a 9×13), toss cooked pasta in sauce.
3. Sprinkle cheese on top.
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-ish minutes until food is bubbly, and cheese is brown and delicious looking.
5. Serve with hot French Bread or Garlic Bread and a green salad.

This serves 8-10 people as a main.

 

If you are vegan, substitute in filled pasta and cheese that works for you.

Family Recipe: Veggie Loaded Pasta Sauce

I’m always on a mission to add more fruits and veggies into our diet. My pasta sauce recipe is full of veggies: Onions, peppers, carrots, zucchini, celery, fresh tomatoes.

And because I love meaty sauce, I can’t forget the 80/20 ground chuck!

I served it last night with both whole wheat pasta and Italian squash that I ran through the spiralizer (I have this one).

The kids aren’t too big on zoodles, but that’s ok. We paired our meal with a green salad (cucumber slices for the kids), and garlic bread (a family favorite).

 

Veggie Loaded Pasta Sauce

Ingredients

• 1.5 lbs ground chuck or your favorite ground beef (don’t use super lean beef)
• 2 T. olive oil
• 1 white onion, diced
• 1/2 c. each chopped or diced: carrots, celery, bell peppers (I used red)
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 6 ripe tomatoes, cut into quarters
• 1 large can (28 ounces) fire-roasted tomatoes 
• 2 cups red wine
• 1 can tomato paste
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 t. Shallot pepper seasoning
• 2 T. Italian Seasoning
• 4 large zucchinis, spiralized, ends diced and reserved for sauce

 

Directions

1. Brown meat in olive oil over low, breaking up meat as it cooks.
2. Add onion, carrots, celery, bell peppers, and cook until soft and onions are translucent.
3. Add garlic, cook until fragrant.
4. Add fresh and canned tomatoes, and tomato paste.
5. De-glaze pan with wine, add seasoning, and small pieces of zucchinis leftover from spiralizing.
6. Cook on low for 2+ hours, stirring occasionally.
7. To cook zucchini spirals, steam for 6-8 minutes, drain and serve right away!

 

This sauce freezes well too and gets better overnight in the fridge.  You can also use this sauce to make lasagna.