It’s a story we’ve all heard before — girl loves pasta, girl loves cheese, girl finds recipe that combines her two greatest loves. Okay… okay so maybe my greatest loves aren’t really pasta and cheese, BUT this Baked Penne Pasta is pretty high on my list.
I saw this pasta dish on All Recipes I made a few changes to the original (my mom says that’s called making it your own) to make it easier to prepare. Of course the first thing I did was add more cheese. This recipe got the Hubby’s stamp of approval. I guess that makes this new entree a keeper.
I serve this pasta dish with a fresh green salad, and crispy bread. I like to put a little dish of Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar on the table for dipping. Besides being delicious, this dish was really easy to make and filling, a great week night meal.
Happy Cooking Y’all!
Susanne
Baked Penne Pasta
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour
Servings 8 servings
Ingredients
- 1 box of penne pasta
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1 cup chopped bell pepper
- 1 cup chopped yellow or white onion
- 3 cups marinara sauce here's my recipe or you can use store bought
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon Italian Seasoning
- 1 cup Italian Blend Cheese with Cream Cheese*
- 1 cup Parmesan cheese
- Salt and Pepper
- *If you can’t find this blend at your grocery store you can substitute with any blend of Italian Cheeses
Instructions
- Coat the bottom of a large skillet with the Olive Oil and then heat up over medium high heat brown beef and drain off fat
- Return beef to skillet and stir in 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder and tablespoon Italian Seasoning stirring until well combined
- In a 9x13 casserole dish layer 1/2 the prepared pasta (drained but not rinsed)
- layer on half of the beef
- then spread half of the sauce top
- sprinkle on 1/2 cup of Italian blend cheeses evenly across top
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