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You Can Have Your Cheese and Tomato Sauce, Too, Pasta Casserole!

8 Comments

pasta casserole image 1

Don’t want to choose between a tomato or cheese sauce for your pasta dinner? Neither did I!

I didn’t know any recipes that had both separately like I wanted them, so I made up this recipe using ingredients I had on hand. It was so delicious, my husband said he liked it better than Olive Garden! If you knew my husband’s opinion of Olive Garden (which I have never tried, btw) that is high praise!
I made this delicious pasta dish a second time, and decided to take photos and write it up so y’all can get in on this yummy goodness, too! It’s really easy to throw together, and we are able to eat two filling meals out of just one casserole. It would also freeze well. I haven’t done it with this particular casserole yet, but this type always seems to do well frozen.
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You Can Have Your Cheese and Tomato Sauce, Too, Pasta Casserole!

pasta casserole image 2

1 lb. ground beef
1 box bow tie or rotini pasta
1 bag frozen spinach
2 cups shredded mozzarella
  • Preheat oven to 400 F.
  • Start the ground beef browning in a skillet and the pasta boiling in a pot.
  • Cook spinach according to directions on package.
  • Spray a 13 x 9 Inch Pan like this one I love with cooking spray.
  • While all of that is cooking, get two large bowls like the bigger ones in this Mixing Bowl Set and dump the tomato sauce in one and the cheese sauce in the other.
  • Once cooked, mix the ground into the tomato sauce and the pasta & spinach into the cheese sauce.
  • Layer half of the cheese mixture in the bottom of the pan, half of the tomato mixture on top of that and sprinkle Parmesan and half of the mozzarella on top of that.
  • Repeat.
  • Put it all in the oven and bake at 400º F for 30 minutes.

This is one of my family’s favorite meals already!

Seriously, my family loves this recipe so much! It’s even simpler than it sounds. You can easily get it all together in just over the time it takes to boil noodles.
As far as serving suggestions go, I like to serve it with garlic bread of some kind. It works as a one pan meal or you can serve it with more veggies in the form of a salad, green beans, corn on the cob, broccoli or anything else that tickles your taste buds.
For more great dinner ideas, check out my Weeknight Dinners and 10 Family Friendly Crockpot Meals!

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8 thoughts on “You Can Have Your Cheese and Tomato Sauce, Too, Pasta Casserole!

  1. OMG this looks soooo goood

    Liked by 1 person

  2. This looks delicious! I love Ragu. Always a great value and always the same taste I love 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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  4. Pingback: The Big List of 40 Ground Beef Recipes | Basically Speaking

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