This is the best tortellini vegetable bake ever! Delicious pasta baked in a vegetable sauce with lots of cheese, comfort food at its best.
If you want to make sure that your children will eat their dinner (including all the veggies) without complaints tonight, this tortellini vegetable bake is the thing for you.
Not only they will eat it, you will probably even get lots and lots of compliments and at least this time, it won't be for making pizza. No, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you fed your kids lots and lots of veggies and they didn't even complain once. 🙂
Here are some other delicious tortellini or pasta bakes your children will love: Baked Tortellini with Tomatoes and Mozzarella, Chicken and Bacon Pasta Bake, Cheesy Tuna Noodle Casserole from Scratch.
Ingredients
I love the list of ingredients. I mean what's not to like: pasta, lots of sweet red bell peppers, tomatoes and CHEESE! Cheese does make anything better, doesn't it?
Tortellini:
- You can use two types of tortellini, I have made the casserole dish countless times and used both kinds of tortellini.
- Dried tortellini you can find on the dry pasta shelf in the supermarket. They are cheaper and actually pretty good.
- However, during the past few years, I switched to using fresh tortellini from the fresh pasta shelf in the supermarket. They are even better.
- The only things you have to remember are the cooking times that the two sorts of tortellini need and the fact that the quantities you need are different.
- 250 g/ 8.8 oz dried tortellini need a longer cooking time (check the packet) and will weigh more or less the double once cooked.
- If you use fresh tortellini, you will need about 450 g - 500 g/ 1 lb of fresh tortellini, which will only need to cook for a couple of minutes prior to using them to make the cheesy tortellini bake.
Cheese:
- We are using cheese quite liberally here, not one, but two types of cheese: feta and Gouda, 125 g or 1 cup of each.
- Feel free to substitute Gouda with a similar cheese available in your area, something like Cheddar for instance.
Vegetables:
- Lots of red bell peppers, four of them.
- Add some tomatoes, if cherry tomatoes or regular ones is really not important, what is important is that they are ripe and sweet and maybe don't have so many seeds. If you use regular, seedier tomatoes, do remove the seeds before chopping the tomatoes.
- Otherwise lots of garlic and some dried oregano to enhance the Italian flair of this pasta bake. If you top the casserole with some fresh basil just before you serve it, that would make things just perfect!
The tortellini vegetable bake is best served immediately. However, you can still reheat the leftovers in the oven and be happy with the result.
More pasta bakes:
Creamy Tuna Pasta Bake (with Sweetcorn)
Pasta Vegetable Bake
Ingredients
- 450 g/ 1 lbs fresh tortellini or 250 g/ 8.8 oz dried ones See note
- 1 medium onion
- 3 garlic cloves
- 4 red bell peppers
- 1-2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 200 g/ 7 oz cherry tomatoes
- 125 ml/ ½ cup vegetable stock
- 125 g/ 4.2 oz/ 1 ½ cup feta
- 125 g/ 4.2 oz/ 1 ½ cup grated cheese Gouda, Cheddar
- fine sea salt and pepper
- basil optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius/ 360 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Cook the pasta according to the packet's instructions. Fresh pasta only needs 1 or 2 minutes, dried pasta longer. Drain well and return the pasta to the pan.
In the meantime chop the onion, the garlic cloves, and the bell peppers very finely. - Heat the oil in a large pan, add the onion cubes and cook until translucent. Add the garlic and the peppers and cook for about 5 minutes until the vegetables are soft. Add the salt, pepper, and oregano.
- Chop the tomatoes and add them to the pan together with the vegetable stock. Let cook for further 5 minutes.
- Add the sauce to the pasta in the pan, add the crumbled feta and mix well. Adjust the taste with more salt and pepper if necessary.
- Brush a casserole dish of about 25x20/10x8 inches with a little olive oil. Add the pasta mixture to the dish and sprinkle everything with the grated cheese.
- Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown and heated through. Garnish with some fresh basil and serve with a green salad.
Thao @ In Good Flavor says
I don't mind red (or green) bell peppers, but they don't agree with me. 🙁 It won't stop me from eating some of this Cheesy Tortellini Casserole. It looks delicious and something that my entire family would love.
Adina says
So glad you like it. I heard peeling the peppers with a potato skinner would work wonders for people who have problems with peppers.
lizzie says
This was so good and so easy......I have made this four or five times now and it has turned out great...thanks for sharing !
Adina says
Wow! Thank you, Lizzie, your comment makes me very happy!! We love this dish too and I am so glad somebody really did cook this!