Pasta Vegetable Bake

Last Updated on 26/03/2020

This is the best pasta vegetable bake ever! Delicious tortellini baked in a vegetable sauce with lots of cheese, comfort food at its best.

VEGETABLE PASTA BAKE WITH TORTELLINI

If you want to make sure that your children will eat their dinner (including all the veggies) without complaints tonight, this pasta 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.

BAKED TORTELLINI WITH VEGETABLES

INGREDIENTS FOR PASTA VEGETABLE BAKE

I love the list of ingredients for this vegetable pasta bake. 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 to make this pasta bake, I have made the casserole dish countless times and used both kinds of tortellini.
• At the beginning, I used to take the dried tortellini you can find on the dry pasta shelf in the supermarket. They were cheaper and they were actually very 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.
• So, use what you like. If you happen to have a bag of dried tortellini in your pantry, do use that, if not, you can buy fresh.
• The only things you have to remember is 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 in this pasta vegetable bake, not one, but two types of cheese: feta and Gouda, 125 g or 1 cup of each. This makes this easy tortellini casserole really really cheesy and so good!
• I use Gouda because Gouda is probably the most common kind of cheese you can buy in Germany, but feel free to substitute that with a similar cheese available in your area, something like Cheddar for instance.
• You could even use a stronger kind of cheese, I do like that a lot, but my children prefer Gouda.

Vegetables:

• Lots of red bell peppers, four of them. They make this pasta bake with veggies incredibly delicious, giving it a sweet and comforting flavor you will love.
• 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 baked tortellini casserole with some fresh basil just before you serve it, that would make things just perfect!

This baked tortellini casserole with vegetables and cheese is best served immediately. However, you can still reheat the leftovers in the oven and be happy with the result.

PIN IT FOR LATER!

Pasta Vegetable Bake

Yield: 4

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

This is the best pasta vegetable bake ever! Delicious tortellini baked in a vegetable sauce with lots of cheese, comfort food at its best.

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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

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius/ 360 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. 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.
3. Heat the oil in a large pan, add the onion cubes and cook until translucent. Add the garlic and the peppers and cook about 5 minutes until the vegetables are soft. Add the salt, pepper and oregano.
4. Chop the tomatoes and add them to the pan together with the vegetable stock. Let cook for further 5 minutes.
5. Pour 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.
6. 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.
7. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown and heated through.
   Garnish with some fresh basil and serve with a green salad.

Notes

I used fresh tortellini (not homemade) filled with spinach and ricotta, but you can choose any filling you like. If you only have dry tortellini, cook about 250 g/ 8.8 oz according to the packet's instructions, you will have roughly the same amount of cooked tortellini in the end.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 4 Serving Size: 1/4 of the dish
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 671Total Fat: 32gSaturated Fat: 16gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 14gCholesterol: 106mgSodium: 1189mgCarbohydrates: 68gFiber: 5gSugar: 10gProtein: 29g

Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.