Red Pepper Pasta Bake
A quick and easy cheesy pasta bake that the whole family will love!
Remember those pumpkin doughnut muffins I posted the other day? Well, the batch made 15 muffins and I shoved 3 in my mouth before my photo shoot but I regretfully asked Jason to bring the leftovers to school so I wouldn’t be tempted to eat the remaining 12. So when I asked him how the cupcakes went over with his friends, this is how our conversation went:
I feel like this is what happens when you don’t have children and your job is to stay at home and cook all day. It also gets better. Later that night, he told me that everyone in his thesis class had a muffin including his professor! Had I known that the professor was going to eat my baked good, I would’ve made some sort of creme brûlée-/macaron type masterpiece! Anyway, I just had to share my overbearing mom qualities.
Now about this pasta.
It’s a fun spin on the traditional pasta bake but instead of using marinara sauce, I’ve used a red pepper sauce that comes together so quickly and easily with the help of my food processor. You can also add in your favorite protein or keep it meatless – either way, this cheesy goodness is so easy to make and everyone will be begging for seconds!
Red Pepper Pasta Bake
Ingredients
- 6 ounces penne pasta
- 1 12-ounce jar roasted red peppers
- ½ cup grated Parmesan
- 2 teaspoons honey
- ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, or more, to taste
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 3 tablespoons olive oil, divded
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 8 ounces spicy Italian sausage, casings removed
- 1 ½ cups shredded mozzarella cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly coat an 8×8 baking dish with nonstick spray.
- In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta according to package instructions; drain well.
- To make the red pepper sauce, combine red peppers, Parmesan, honey and red pepper flakes in the bowl of a food processor; season with salt and pepper, to taste. With the motor running, add 2 tablespoons olive oil in a slow stream until emulsified; set aside.
- Heat remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about 1-2 minutes. Add sausage and cook until browned, about 5 minutes, making sure to crumble the sausage as it cooks. Stir in pasta and red pepper mixture until well combined.
- Add pasta to prepared baking dish and top with mozzarella. Place into oven and bake until cheese has melted, about 5-10 minutes.
- Serve immediately.
Did you make this recipe?
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Ok, so I don’t typically leave reviews, but this baked pasta is just. So. Good. Damn delicious indeed. I LOVE it and my kids eat it without complaint (as long as I use mild, not spicy sausage). 10/10. Make it, love it, and add it to your regular rotation.
This was delicious. I get discouraged with cooking sometimes because you spend a ton of money on ingredients, then a ton of time preparing the dish, only to to find it “just okay.” Like my “boyfriend eats it, but doesn’t ask for seconds” okay. He loved this! I did as well (although not a huge fan of sausage so cut down on that some).
I did throw in some heavy cream (maybe 1/2 cup) just because it was sitting in the frig. Thanks for the great recipe!
My husband and I loved this! So delicious! Thanks so much for the great recipe!
Did you use the liquid from the roasted red peppers in addition to the stream of olive oil? Roasted red peppers and red pepper flakes, you can never go wrong with combination! Looks taste, I think my family will like this. Thank you!
Yes, I used about 2 TBS of the liquid.
Hi there
Love your recipes! Just wondering …could you do your ingredient lists using cups as opposed to ounces?
Jules, all of my recipes are already in cups with a few exceptions – pasta, canned products, etc.
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This recipe was amazing! Thank you so much!
Hi! Evberything on your website looks amazing and I’ve been dying to try this. However, it’s a little difficult to get some of these ingredients in Pakistan, where I live. I wanted to know whether the roasted red peppers have a taste different to the green bell peppers? Those are most easily available here. And whether I could substitute the Parmesean with cheddar or mozarella?
Osheen, I understand that you have limited access to certain ingredients in your country but unfortunately, it is best to use the ingredients listed out to obtain the best results possible. You can certainly substitute green bell peppers and mozzarella but I cannot speak for how much this will change the overall taste/texture of the dish.
My daughter was recently diagnosed with several food allergies including tomatoes. We have been experimenting with foods trying to make her not feel like she’s missing out on too much. This sauce with gluten free pasta with make her one very happy camper thank you so much.
this recipe was freakink awesome, my bf and me liked it very much 🙂
thx for that!!! i was really suprised because im not so into peppers but i liked it that much that im gonna cook it again!
Could this be prepared earlier in day and then baked at last minute?
I haven’t tried it myself but I can’t see why it wouldn’t work!
This was delicious! Was I supposed to drain the peppers first, or add all the liquid? Thanks for a great recipe 🙂
I would add a little bit of the liquid, about 2 tablespoons.
I want this for dinner but sadly I am fasting.
This was so good! My boyfriend and I made this for dinner the other night, and now i’m busy binge-reading your whole website for more of your recipes to try.
Made this for dinner tonight. It was delish! Hubby said I could make it any night of the week and he’d eat leftovers for days 🙂
I’m so glad! The leftovers are the best!
Found you recipe on Pinterest! Made it last night and it was Incredible and so easy!! My only issue was that the sauce was a bit on the runny side and a lot of it sank to the bottom instead of sticking to the noodles. I might try something to thicken the sauce up next time.
I have the last of my bell peppers from my garden in the yard and have been wondering what to use them for….I think I found my answer! 🙂
I made this last night and it was delicious!! I mixed in spinach, diced onions and squash to add some veggies to the mix.
I love your add-ins – will definitely have to try that next time!
I love pasta bakes! This one looks delicious and I am loving all of your 30 minute meal recipes. So great for weeknights!
Haha I laughed abit about your muffin incident 😛
Good thing is that everyone loved your baked
goodies right!
The pasta itself looks delicious <3 It fits this
cold season well! Xx
Cheesey pasta bakes are my favorite!! This looks incredible, my mouth is watering over here 🙂
I LOVE YOU
Awesome…. and totally within my college budget
Made this for a few friends before we went out on Halloween.
Came home drunk and devoured it. We all loved it so much that we stayed up until 4 to make more- improvising as we had run out of a few ingredients !!
This pasta bake looks seriously addicting 😉 I’ll be over for dinner soon!
looks good..yummy!
http://thestoryofayna.blogspot.com/
Thanks for posting this! I’m new to the kitchen- this was simple to make and tasted great!
Yum! This looks so good! I looooove red peppers… I definitely want to try this. 🙂
It’s funny, I’m the same exact way! We have a work space with many friends and one of the main reasons why we got it was because then I could make more sweets and treats and give them out! A few times a week I send him to work with a container full of baked goods! It leaves them full and ready to work (or take a nap that I think about it).
I’m in love with this bake, pinning to make soon with our garden peppers!
There is no shame in being the over bearing carb giver!! I do it all the time to the guys I work with. I’m determined to make them fat. And I will totally eat this for days on end. You’ve hit the nail on the head cause I’ve been CRAVING pasta like woah!
I bet his colleagues absolutely love you! This pasta looks so great – love that red pepper flavour, it makes such a good change from tomato.
I’m doing a pasta bake tonight too. Except I might add a whole load more cheese 😉
red pepper sauce sounds great!
Wow that looks amazing.
I feel your pain here: not having any children makes me have to share all my baked-goods with the rest of students in my classe, the women who I attend swimming lessons with and basically everybody I run into haha. Thise muffins looked so stellar I wouldn’t have shared though 😉
And so does this pasta bake, that pepper sauce sounds terrific. I need it now!
Pasta bakes are our fav’s for breakfast .. looks delicious… beautiful clicks.. glad to follow u
This pasta dish looks so comforting and cozy, and easy too! Love your blog!
It looks delicious! And I don’t blame you one bit for sending the doughnut muffins away. I shove food on my neighbor all the time so I won’t sit and eat it. I’ve even been known to leave a covered dish out on her front porch just to get it away from myself!!!
Haha, I always bring my treats to work and I love listening to people going, “ohh, what’s this?” and hearing them open the container while I am in my office. It’s good we can spread our recipes around! Especially the sweet stuff! This pasta looks fab, the sauce sounds delish!
That convo is too funny! I love roasted red peppers so I can’t wait to try this bake!
Ha! You and Jason are adorable.
And I want you to send me to work with tupperware full of muffins.
You should move in with me – I’ll always have a tupperware of muffins for you! 🙂
I am going to make this for dinner tonight. Yum! I love pasta. I love to cook and bring a lot of my extra helpings to the office to share with my co-workers.
This looks so good that I seriously wish I had it for breakfast right now!
Trust me, I do the same thing! Gotta get the food in peoples mouths before it goes bad…or I eat it all! 🙂
Love this pasta! Red peppers are my favorite!
I do this exact same thing, I send my mum to work with cakes and cookies, macarons; you name it. Just to get it out of the house and away from my mouth!
She is a nurse at a hospital and she share it with the doctors and patients too. They always ask her “Do you have any food for us today?”
Love the red pepper sauce on this pasta bake, I am addicted to jar peppers now (I used to have to roast them myself before I discovered them)
Sometimes I give food to my hubs/daughter in a lunch sack like to take to the park and they wind up sharing it with others. It’s like had I known others were going to eat it, i would have doctored it up a little better. But honestly I think anything homemade (for the avg non-blogger) is a super special treat. And your muffins looked amazing!
“Doctored it up” – that’s the perfect way to put it!