https://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/cheesy-pasta-dish • Posted by Hypergraphia
Super tasty, fairly cheap, very easy dish that my friend taught me how to make. Beware though- this sucker is fattening! This is also easily doubled or tripled for lots of people. Serve it with a simple salad and, voila! Dinner is served :)
Super tasty, fairly cheap, very easy dish that my friend taught me how to make. Beware though- this sucker is fattening! This is also easily doubled or tripled for lots of people. Serve it with a simple salad and, voila! Dinner is served :)
Gather all of your ingredients. Start with the mozzarella cheese: I used Fresh and Easy Whole Milk Mozzarella. Personally, I like the consistency and texture of this mozzarella, but you can make it with wet, block, low fat, or shredded. Pretty much what ever you have on hand :)
Cut it in half
Roughly chop each half
Grab your sauce. I use the Classico Four Cheese Alfredo, since its not very salty. Again, use what ever you have on hand :)
Grab your Parmesan. I used Fresh and Easy Shredded Parmesan.
Dump your sauce into a sauce pan and add HALF of the mozzarella (save the other half for later)
Add a generous pinch of Parmesan (or more, if you want the sauce to be very rich!)
Turn on the heat, to medium.
Heat a pot of salted water.
While your waiting for both the sauce and the water to heat up, pull out your pan. I used a 9 X 13 glass dish, but I have made this with an 8 X 8.
Pasta! Again I used Fresh and Easy Bow Ties (if you can't tell, I made a trip to F&E and grabbed all of the ingredients there, LOL). This dish is really yummy with bow ties, spirals, or shells. Basically, any pasta that the sauce will "stick" to. Once the water comes to a boil, add the pasta.
So this was hard to get a picture of but... you want to stir the sauce a lot so that none of it settles to the bottom and starts to burn. The sauce will be done when it gets "stringy" (which I tried to capture in the picture). Basically, you want the mozzarella and Parmesan to be incorporated into the sauce. You can leave it "chunky" if you want, you'll just have big chunks of cheese (which doesn't sound too bad!) ***You can cook the pasta in advance, but the pasta and the sauce take about the same amount of time to cook. While your at the stove, why not kill two birds, eh?
Keep an eye on the pasta at the same time, occasionally stirring. Cook until the pasta is al dente, or slightly under cooked. (If you cook it all the way through, thats fine. The pasta will be cooked again, in the oven. Keeping it al dente keeps the pasta from getting too soft)
When the pasta is done, grab your colander
Strain your pasta. DO NOT RINSE. Shake the excess water off the pasta.
Dump the pasta in your Pam'ed dish
Pour the cheesy sauce over the pasta.
Scrape down the pot, getting all that cheesy goodness on there!
Spread the sauce, covering the top. You can toss the pasta in the sauce, but its not necessary. The sauce filters down when you cook it.
Drop the other half of the mozzarella from earlier onto the sauced pasta. This doesn't have to be perfect, just space it out.
Sprinkle Parmesan onto the dish. Put on as much or as little as you want! I put on lots since Parmesan isn't tooo bad (>.<) as far as cheeses go.
This is what mine looked like pre-baked.
Put it in the oven. And importantly, do not preheat! Turn on the oven to 350 degrees and bake. Bake for around 10 minutes.
This is about 8 minutes in :) mmmm bubbly and yummy looking!
This is 10 minuted of baking. I do like mine to be a bit browner on top, but I needed to reheat it later for dinner, so I just cooked it a little :)
Yumm, all done! This dish is also very tasty with veggies or shrimp. I don't eat land meats, but I'm sure chicken, pork, or even beef would be good too. Just add the veggie or protein when you mix the pasta, sauce, and cheese. Enjoy!