I had an open jar of spaghetti sauce in the fridge I wanted to use, but I didn’t have any Parmesan or ricotta so I couldn’t make my regular spaghetti pie so I thought I would make a spaghetti bake. I went back and forth with just mixing the chicken and pasta, but the thought of melted cheese on top was too strong to resist.
Even though I wanted to use the spaghetti sauce I am not a big fan. I went back and forth on mixing it in or pouring it on top. Then I decided I will serve the casserole on a puddle of it. That way I can give my husband more than me. I can have a taste of it, but not have it overpower the other flavors.
As usual I was making this up as I went a long and using what we had so I forgot two things I wanted to put it in. I wanted to add shallots and nutritional yeast. Oh well. Next time.
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Spaghetti Bake
1 can of garbanzo beans
Olive oil
Season All
Tomato sauce (2 cups? or as much as you want)
salt (for boiling pasta)
1 box / 1 lb. of spaghetti
1 C crumbled feta
3 eggs
3/4 C milk
2 cans of chicken
1 cup of shredded cheese
oregano (to taste)
garlic powder (to taste)
olive oil
2 cups of mozzarella
Drain the garbanzo beans. You can use them as is or roast them. I roasted them using Season All (my Roasted Chickpeas post uses garlic powder).
If you are not roasting the chickpeas you may want to turn on your oven to 400°F to preheat it.
Spoon a thin layer of spaghetti sauce on the bottom of a 9X13 baking dish. Cook and drain the spaghetti. (I boil pasta with salted water.) Put half of the cooked pasta on the sauce in the baking dish.
Sprinkle some crumbled feta on top. Then put the beans on top and spread them out.
Scramble/mix the eggs in a bowl add the milk. Drain the chicken, add to bowl. Add the 1 cup of shredded cheese. (I used a triple cheddar blend.) Add the oregano and garlic powder. I also added some salt. Mix it all together than spread over the pasta in the dish.
Put the rest of the cooked spaghetti on top. Sprinkle with olive oil then top with cheese. Put the dish in the preheated (to 400°F) oven and bake for 30 minutes.
Then slice . . . and as I said I served it on a puddle of sauce.
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It is just another way of eating pasta. I love cheese melted in the oven until it is golden brown. This was gorgeous and delicious. There are so many ways you can do it. What would you add?
This is not a recipe at all . . . it is more of an idea. The other night I was trying to decide on a side to eat with our ground turkey (with mushrooms) and I decided to go with pasta since I didn’t want to turn on the stove AND the oven. Then I saw that I needed to use some Roma tomatoes that were going to start to go bad so I thought I would just add them to my husband’s ground turkey . . . I am not a fan of cooked tomatoes, but I thought he would enjoy it. But when I looked at the tomatoes I decided I need to use all three and not just one so then I thought, well, I will just throw them in the pasta after it has cooked and mix it up with a bit of cheese. Then I thought, I could just slice them and put them on top. Then I thought I could layer the mozzarella. Then I thought . . . dang, I could just turn it into a “bruschetta type” pasta and add basil and balsamic.
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