Vegan Pasta Bake Recipe - Veggies Don't Bite (2024)

FAQs

Why is my pasta bake hard? ›

“It's my first time cooking baked ziti and when I took it out the oven, the top layer of pasta was a little hard/dry. Why?” It should be a little dry and crunchy. But if it is excessively hard, then the most likely cause is that it was cooked for too long or at too high a cooking temperature.

Okay, so it's a little hard to resist the urge to serve up all that baked goodness right out of the oven, however it's important to wait 5-10 minutes. This gives the bake time to firm up slightly, so your pasta bake will hold its shape and be easier to serve and eat.

Most pasta bake recipes require you to pre-boil your pasta until it's not quite cooked through and then finish it in the oven. But for days when you can't face another pot to wash up or just need something delicious and comforting but minimal effort…well this is the recipe for you!

PREHEAT oven to 425 degrees. COMBINE uncooked pasta, 1 jar of Sauce and 1 jar of water in a 13 x 9 inch baking pan. Cover with aluminum foil. BAKE 30 minutes.

Keep Checking for Doneness.

As you get close to the end of your estimated cooking time, taste the pasta. If it is done, it should have a nice al dente bite and taste like pasta. If it is undercooked, it will be too hard and chewy. Overcook it and your noodles will be limp and soggy.

Place it in a microwave-safe bowl and submerge the noodles in water. Set it for about a minute and check to see if it's cooked upon removing. It certainly won't be as good as pasta made on the stove, but it gets the job done for when you can't be bothered to pull the pot back out.

For this recipe, we help reduce excess moisture by using no-boil noodles, cooking the mushrooms, onion and bell peppers before adding them to the lasagna, and squeezing the liquid out of the cooked spinach with a kitchen towel. You want your veggies as dry as possible so you are not adding more moisture than necessary.

A general ratio to work with is 2 tablespoons flour for every cup of liquid. Start by adding a little bit, then cook, stirring, for a few minutes to allow the sauce time to thicken and cook off the raw flour taste; if the results are minimal, add more.

For Baked Pasta Dishes

As for picking the perfect pasta shape, we recommend choosing a short cut—like Penne, Shells or Rigatoni—with hollow middles, twists or scoop-like shapes to capture all the goodness of your baked pasta: sauces, small ingredients and melty cheeses galore.

Cover very tightly with a double layer of aluminum foil and bake for an hour. At that point the pasta will be cooked, but I like to add some shredded cheese to the top and put it back into the oven, uncovered, to melt the cheese. Then the pasta bake NEEDS TO REST for 15 minutes before serving.

What must be done to pasta before baking it? ›

Dried pasta needs to be par-boiled, then drained before using it in baked dishes. Just boil for half the time specified on the package. There is a type of dried no-boil lasagna sheets that don't require par-boiling, but they need extra water added to the sauce.

It's so easy and inexpensive to make your own, but if you're pushed for time, any shop-bought tomato-based pasta sauce will be fine. I will admit to using these quite regularly! Just check the ingredients list first – it should be short and all ingredients should be recognisable!

Simply swap the water for milk. Here's the catch, you do have to babysit your noodles a bit more than you would have to if you are cooking in water. First, you want to make sure you have enough milk to allow for evaporation. Second, keep the milk at a simmer rather than a full boil to prevent from burning.

It is possible to cook pasta in an air fryer, and “pasta bakes that just need the baking part should be fine”, says Ailsa Burt. “But I wouldn't use an air fryer to cook pasta dishes with lots of sauce.”

Too much flour makes the pasta tough.

Because the pasta's going into a hot sauce in a hot oven, it'll continue to cook long after it's been drained. You're looking for a semi-raw texture—even firmer than al dente pasta.

If you're worried about your leftovers being too dry, you can add an extra dollop of pasta sauce or even a few drops of water to the baking dish. This will revamp your leftovers and keep the taste and texture the same as the first time you enjoyed the meal.

Secret to Moist Baked Pasta

Make the sauce little goey, add reserved pasta cooked water then add pasta and toss well. Adding pasta cooked water does the trick of keeping the paste moist even after baking.