Hello lovelies, all month long, we're celebrating all things autumn with some of my very favorite comfort food recipes. And today we're taking things right over the top with this three cheese baked pasta.
Now this is loaded with Italian sausage and kale. It's so delicious and it's really simple to put together.
So let's get started. Now the first step in this recipe is just cooking up our pasta. So I've got a nice big pot of boiling water on my stove. And to that I'm just going to be adding some Penny you can really use any pasta you want in this recipe. It's super forgiving, so just check what you have in your pantry and toss it in the pot.
While that pasta is cooking away, we're going to turn our attention to mixing up our sauce for this recipe. So to get started, I just have some oil, I'm going to get that into my skillet. And to that I am going to add my sausage.
So the sausage that I am using in this recipe is actually turkey , you can usually find turkey or chicken versions in this recipe as well. It is totally up to you what kind of sausage you want to use.
I should also mention if you want to remove the heat from this recipe, you can go ahead and use mild Italian sausage instead. Or even ground beef will work here. It's very very versatile and you have a ton of great options.
Now I've just removed my sausage from its casing, and I'm just going to cook it up in my pan breaking it up with the side of my spoon until it's no longer pink, you want to make sure that your sausage is thoroughly cooked. Okay, so just as soon as our turkey is cooked through, it is time to get in here with more great flavor. So I'm just going to get an onion in here and I want to let that cook for another two to three minutes just until it softens up. Next I'll add my garlic to this I've got one clove of minced garlic if you want to use 234 Hey, you do you in the kitchen totally up to you. I'm also going to be adding some Italian seasoning here. This is shorba Italian seasoning. If you want to make your own Italian seasoning, I have an amazing recipe for that I will link it in the description box below.
As soon as that garlic is nice and fragrant, we can go ahead and add our tomato sauce to the pot. So I am using just some jarred tomato sauce. And I'm just gonna let that cook away for another two to three minutes just until that sauce is nice and simmering. And at this point guys, I want to amp up the nutrition factor in this dish a little bit by loading in some greens. So here I've got some chopped baby kale that I'm going to pile into my pot. You could totally use spinach here instead, really any greens will do. What I love about kale and spinach is that they wilt down really really quickly in addition like this, so within one minute, your kills totally wilted down, and you're ready to start adding your pasta to your sauce. Now I was originally going to drain my pasta in a colander first, but I've decided I'm actually just going to use a nice big slotted spoon to transfer my pasta right into my sauce and save myself the extra dish because C'mon on a busy week night who needs extra dishes. The best part about doing it this way is that you get a little bit of that salty pasta water added straight to your sauce so it seasons it up and makes it even more flavorful. Now I just want to stir this pasta around to get it nice and coated and all of that delicious and flavorful sauce and then my friends we can get to work on building our amazing three cheese pasta bake.
Okay guys to assemble this I am going to be using a nice big baking dish like this. And I just want to transfer half of my pasta to the dish. Basically what we're going to be doing is layering this incredible pasta with lots and lots of cheese. Okay, so our first layer of cheese here is going to be some nice creamy ricotta cheese, one of my favorite kinds of cheese, and all I'm going to do is just use a spoon to sort of add little dollops to the top of my pasta layer. ricotta is just so creamy, it's got such a lovely consistency. A lot of people like to use ricotta in their lasagna. And in a lot of ways this is sort of a bit like lasagna, but just a lot less less. As soon as I've got that first layer of ricotta
She's down. I'm going to go ahead and pile in the other half of my pasta. Then I'm going to top it with another layer of ricotta cheese, a whole heaping helping of shredded mozzarella cheese. And I'm going to talk all of this off with some freshly grated Parmesan cheese. At this point, we are ready for some baking friends.
I have got my oven preheated to 375 degrees, I'm going to get this guy in there. We'll bake it off for between 15 and 20 minutes just until that cheese topping is absolutely irresistible.
Seriously guys, when this comes out of the oven, it is something to behold. It's nice to golden on top, that cheese is so beautifully melted.
I'm going to finish it with just a nice sprinkle of fresh parsley for a little green and a bit of freshness. Honestly, guys, this dish is so easy to make, but it's absolutely delicious for the entire family.
It's perfect on a chilly fall evening, so I hope you'll give it a try for yourselves. If you do be sure to tweet me Instagram me or Facebook me a photo because you know how much I love seeing your kitchen creations. Remember, this recipe like all of our recipes is featured on healthy meal plans.com, our amazing meal planning site, it allows you to browse more than 1000 recipes, drag and drop them into your weekly meal plan, and then automatically generates your shopping list. So you can take it straight to the supermarket. I hope you'll check it out. And finally, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe because there is lots more deliciousness where this came from.
