Pizza Pasta Bake

This weekend my in-laws came to visit.  It’s a 6 hour drive from their place to ours so they usually do not get in until around 9 or 10.  The visit always starts out with my father-in-law suggesting we get pizza.  But because it’s around 9, all the places around us only do delivery and Matt and him debate whether delivery will take too long.  And after discussing it for 20 minutes, a delivered pizza would likely already be on its way.  So this time I decided to skip the whole first act and make something.  This pizza bake was a huge hit.  My father-in-law got his pizza fix, and Matt got his bake fix.

Ingredients

  • 1 lb bow tie pasta
  • 1 lb mild pork sausage
  • 1 large onion, medium size chopped
  • 2 cans of tomato sauce
  • enough slices of pepperoni to your liking
  • 1 1/2 (8 ounce) bags of shredded mozzarella cheese
  • 6 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese
  • 2 garlic cloves, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 handful fresh basil
  • 1 handful fresh parsley

 

Directions

  1. Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil.  Add pasta and cook pasta to al denté  (when the pasta is soft on the outside but when you cut the pasta in half, the middle is still white and looks dry).
  2. In a medium-sized sauce pot, cook sausage, onion, garlic, and oregano until juices run clear.  Add fresh basil and parsley and cook until leaves soften.
  3. In a lightly greased 9×13 inch pan, pour enough tomato sauce to cover the bottom of the pan.  Sprinkle garlic powder, salt, pepper, and/or rosemary to taste (I added a shake of each).
  4. You are now going to layer the ingredients.  First, add 1/3 of the pasta.  Then in this order layer: 1/3 of remaining sauce, 1/3 cheese, 2 Tablespoons of Parmesan, 1/3 sausage onion mix.
  5. Repeat this two more times (pasta, sauce, mozz cheese, Parmesan cheese, sausage onion mix).  On the final layer, add an additional layer of mozzarella cheese as the last ingredient.  Top with pepperoni.
  6. Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes.  Let cool for 5 minutes before serving and enjoy!

 

Adapted from: Cully’s Kitchen

 

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5 Comments

    1. haha. yea, it was one of those dinners where I didn’t wanna know how many points each bite was worth. but it was so worth the indulgence!

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