Baked Pasta
Cooking Skills: Pasta 1
Chapter 7 · Baked Pasta
Skill goal
Bake pasta so it comes out moist, saucy and golden, using white sauce, tomato sauce and ragù.
Shopping list for this chapter
The basics
Baked pasta is the dish you make when you want to cook ahead, or to feed a crowd. The pasta, sauce and cheese are assembled in a dish and baked until the top turns golden and the sauce thickens. Three rules separate the great from the dry and stodgy.
- Undercook the pasta. Boil it 2 to 3 minutes less than the packet says. It will soak up sauce and finish cooking in the oven.
- Make the sauce wetter than usual. A sauce that looks right on the hob will be dry after baking.
- Cover, then uncover. Foil traps steam so the pasta cooks without drying; removing it for the last part gives a golden top.
| Sauce | How thick before baking | Why |
|---|---|---|
| White (cheese) sauce | Pourable, like single cream | It thickens as the cheese and pasta absorb it |
| Tomato sauce | Loose, with a splash of pasta water added | The pasta keeps drinking it |
| Ragù for lasagne | Sloppy, not stiff | The dried sheets need the moisture |
All baked pasta needs a short rest after baking so that it settles and can be served.
Try it
Level 1 · Start here
Macaroni cheese
Macaroni cheese is pasta in a cheese sauce, baked until golden. The cheese sauce is built on a white sauce (béchamel): fat and flour cooked into a paste, then thinned with milk.
Ingredients (2 portions)
- 150 g dried macaroni
- 25 g butter
- 25 g plain flour
- 400 ml milk
- 100 g mature cheddar, grated
- 20 g parmesan, grated
- 1 tsp English or Dijon mustard
- 1 pinch nutmeg
- ¼ tsp salt
- 2 tbsp dried breadcrumbs
- 1 tomato, sliced, for the top (optional)
- Heat the oven to 180°C fan (200°C conventional, gas 6). Boil the macaroni in salted water for 2 minutes less than the packet time. It will finish cooking in the oven. Drain.
- Make the white sauce: melt the butter in a medium pan over a low-medium heat, stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring, without browning. Take off the heat.
- Add the milk a splash at a time, whisking until smooth after each addition. Return to the heat and cook, stirring, for 5 to 8 minutes, until it coats the back of a spoon and loses any floury taste.
- Off the heat, stir in the cheddar, mustard, nutmeg and salt until melted. Mix in the macaroni.
- Tip into a baking dish. Scatter over the parmesan and breadcrumbs (and the tomato slices). Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden and bubbling at the edges.
Lumpy white sauce?
Add the milk slowly, whisk constantly, and don't let the flour paste go too hot. A sauce that has gone lumpy can usually be rescued by whisking hard or pushing it through a sieve. Lighter swap: replace some of the pasta with steamed cauliflower or leeks, and use a stronger cheese so you need less.
Level 2 · Easy bake
Baked pasta with tomato and mozzarella
Pasta, a tomato sauce and cheese. Here the work is in the proportions: baked pasta needs a looser, wetter sauce than a normal pasta dish, because the pasta keeps absorbing it in the oven.
Ingredients (3 portions)
- 225 g dried penne or rigatoni (75 g per portion)
- 450 ml tomato sauce from chapter 3 (the slow sauce, or a double batch of the quick one)
- 125 g mozzarella, torn
- 20 g parmesan, grated
- 6 basil leaves, torn
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- Heat the oven to 180°C fan (200°C conventional, gas 6). Boil the pasta in salted water for the packet time minus 3 minutes. Scoop out a mugful of the water and drain.
- Mix the pasta with the tomato sauce, half the mozzarella, the basil and about 100 ml of the pasta water. The mixture should look quite wet.
- Tip into a baking dish and top with the rest of the mozzarella and the parmesan. Drizzle with the oil.
- Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes, until bubbling and golden. Rest for 5 minutes.
Level 3 · The big one
Lasagne
Three components you now know how to make: a ragù (chapter 6), a white sauce (this chapter) and pasta. The skill is the assembly, and the sauces must be wetter than you expect, because dried lasagne sheets drink as they bake.
Ingredients (6 portions)
- 700 ml slow beef ragù (chapter 6, the whole batch of 6 portions is about 900 ml; use 700 to 900 ml)
- 35 g butter
- 35 g plain flour
- 500 ml milk
- 1 pinch nutmeg
- 250 g no-pre-cook dried lasagne sheets
- 50 g parmesan, grated
- 100 g mozzarella, torn
- 100 ml water, to loosen the ragù if thick
- Heat the oven to 180°C fan (200°C conventional, gas 6). Make the white sauce as for the macaroni cheese with the butter, flour and milk, cooking for 6 to 8 minutes. Add the nutmeg.
- If the ragù is thick, loosen it with up to 100 ml of water: it should be sloppy, not stiff.
- In a deep dish (about 20 × 30 cm), spread a thin layer of ragù. Cover with a layer of lasagne sheets, then a layer of ragù, then a layer of white sauce and a sprinkling of parmesan. Repeat to make three layers, ending with white sauce.
- Scatter over the mozzarella and the rest of the parmesan.
- Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for 15 to 20 minutes more, until golden, bubbling and steaming hot in the middle (a knife pushed into the centre comes out hot).
- Rest for 15 minutes before cutting, so the layers set.
Make it ahead
Assemble the lasagne the day before, cover and refrigerate it, and add 10 minutes to the foil-covered baking time. Or freeze it (assembled and unbaked, wrapped well) for up to 3 months and bake it from frozen with an extra 30 minutes under foil.
Level 3 · Stuffed
Stuffed shells
Big pasta shells are filled with a creamy spinach and ricotta mixture and baked in tomato sauce. The pasta must be firm enough to hold the filling.
Ingredients (3 portions)
- 12 jumbo pasta shells (about 100 g)
- 250 g ricotta
- 100 g cooked spinach, squeezed dry
- 30 g parmesan, grated
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 pinch nutmeg
- ½ lemon, zest only
- 300 ml tomato sauce from chapter 3
- 50 g mozzarella, torn
- Heat the oven to 180°C fan (200°C conventional, gas 6). Boil the shells in salted water for the packet time minus 3 minutes and drain on a tray in a single layer (don't pile them up, or they stick and tear).
- Mix the ricotta, spinach, parmesan, egg yolk, nutmeg, lemon zest and a pinch of salt in a bowl.
- Spread half the tomato sauce over the base of a baking dish. Fill each shell with a heaped tablespoon of the mixture and arrange them in the dish, open side up.
- Spoon the remaining sauce over and around the shells, and top with the mozzarella. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes, then uncover and bake for 5 to 10 minutes until bubbling.
Experiments
Experiment
Thick sauce or loose sauce
Test the 'wetter than you think' rule.
- Make two small baked pasta dishes using the same ingredients. In one, mix the pasta with sauce straight from the pan. In the other, loosen the sauce with 4 tablespoons of water.
- Bake both the same way and compare.
Look for: The dish with the thick sauce is dry and stodgy, the loose one is moist and saucy. Remember the difference when you're making lasagne.
Experiment
Covered or uncovered
What does the foil do?
- Bake two small dishes of the tomato and mozzarella pasta. Bake one uncovered for the whole time, and the other under foil for the first 20 minutes, as in the recipe.
Look for: The uncovered dish browns quickly but its top pasta pieces are hard and dry. The covered one is evenly moist, with a golden top from the last 10 minutes.
Experiment
Resting before cutting
Does a rest matter?
- When the lasagne comes out of the oven, cut a small corner at once, another after 10 minutes and a third after 15 to 20 minutes.
- Look at how the piece holds together and how much liquid runs out.
Look for: The piece cut at once runs everywhere, and the rested piece holds its layers. Now you know why patience is part of the recipe.
Tasting notes
| What I tried | Method or amount | What I saw | What I thought | Will I do it again? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Macaroni cheese | ||||
| Tomato and mozzarella bake | ||||
| Lasagne | ||||
| Stuffed shells | ||||
| Thick vs loose sauce | ||||
| Covered vs uncovered | ||||
| Rested vs not |
Troubleshooting
| Problem | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Dry, stodgy bake | Sauce too thick, or pasta overcooked | Loosen the sauce; boil pasta less next time |
| Pasta crunchy on top | Not covered, or too little sauce | Cover with foil; make sure pasta is buried in sauce |
| Watery bake | Too much liquid, or not rested | Reduce the sauce slightly and rest 15 minutes |
| Lumpy white sauce | Milk added too fast, or flour too hot | Add the milk slowly and whisk; sieve the sauce to rescue it |
| Cheese sauce split and oily | Boiled after adding the cheese | Add the cheese off the heat and don't boil it |
| Pale topping | Oven too cool, or not uncovered | Uncover for the last 10 minutes; grill for 2 minutes at the end |
Food safety: baked pasta
Bake until steaming hot all the way through. Cool leftovers quickly (cut into portions so they cool faster), refrigerate within about an hour and eat within 24 hours, or freeze. Reheat until steaming hot. Cooked pasta is a starchy food, and like rice it can grow bacteria if it is left warm. There is no pasta-specific official guidance, so this course uses the cautious rule: cool it quickly (within about an hour), put it in the fridge, and eat it within 24 hours; freeze it if you won't. Reheat until steaming hot all the way through. Hot dishes are heavy and the sauce can scald: use oven gloves.
Checkpoint: can you do this now?
- I know to undercook pasta that will be baked.
- I can make a smooth white sauce and add cheese to it.
- I can assemble lasagne in layers.
- I know why baked pasta needs foil and a rest.
- I can make an unbaked dish ahead and freeze it.
Next chapter
Cooking Skills: Pasta 1, chapter 8 is Pasta Beyond the Plate: minestrone, pasta e ceci, a pesto pasta salad and a frittata from leftover pasta.