Homemade pasta casserole: A family favourite on busy nights
Pasta casserole is definitely my favourite homemade fast food. It's tasty, nutritious, and almost makes itself. It's nice when you don't have to dirty half the kitchen equipment to feed the whole family, right? And the ingredients? Cheap!
I can't count on both hands how many times the recipe for pasta casserole has saved my life this year. Sure, I realize that returning to this recipe too often can effectively lower the pleasure derived from eating this dish. So let's agree that it's worth reducing those circumstances to a feasible minimum—let's say, on days when we simply don't have time for long and complicated cooking.
What do you do to make the pasta casserole not bland? I use vegetables for that. In my case, it's zucchini, onion, pepper, and canned tomatoes. Nothing fancy (and costly), and my homemade fast food suddenly takes on new flavours and health benefits. To blend everything into a harmonious whole, I use cheese in this recipe, specifically mozzarella. After all, we're talking about typical "comfort food," aren't we?
Below is the recipe for the pasta casserole that I use myself. I recommend it wholeheartedly and can promise that the dish will turn out delicious and that you won't have to work hard on it. Good luck!
simple pasta casserole with vegetables and chicken
Ingredients:
- 150 grams of pasta (I use narrow tubes, aka macaroni),
- olive oil,
- 1 double chicken breast,
- 1 onion,
- 2 cloves of garlic,
- 1 zucchini,
- 1 red pepper,
- 400 grams of canned chopped tomatoes,
- 150 grams of hard yellow cheese in a block,
- 1 teaspoon of oregano,
- 1 teaspoon of curry,
- 1 teaspoon of sweet paprika,
- a pinch of hot paprika,
- a pinch of turmeric.
Instructions:
- Mix all the spices in a separate bowl. Cut the chicken into cubes and mix with half of the prepared spices. Cook the pasta in salted water until it's quite al dente.
- After a while, fry the seasoned chicken in hot olive oil. Remove the meat from the heat.
- In the same pan (without the chicken), sauté the cut vegetables: first, the onion and garlic, then the zucchini and pepper. At the end, add the rest of the spices, canned tomatoes, pasta, and chicken. Fry for a moment, and then my work will be almost done.
- Transfer everything to an ovenproof dish. Cover and bake for 20 minutes at 180°C (356°F). After that, add grated cheese and bake for a few more minutes. Done!
