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This pasta bake is done in one pan and doesn’t require you to even boil the pasta first. Yes, that means the pasta is cooked in the oven! It’s amazing how delicious it is when you literally only need to spend 5 minutes prepping it. This one is going to save your weeknights for sure!
I honestly hate the phrase “dump dinners” or “dump-and-go dinners” where you dump everything into a cooking vessel and that’s all you have to do. I dislike the phrase, for sure. But, I love the concept!
Truly my favorite way to cook is to put everything on a sheet pan or in a casserole dish, put it in the oven, and then walk away.
I was never sure if you could cook pasta in the oven like that though. Until I started working on this recipe. Then I learned that the answer is yes, you can absolutely cook pasta in the oven. You just need the right amount of liquid, and a delicious recipe.
You’re going to be amazed by this recipe. You literally just put everything into a baking dish, cover it, put it in the oven, and walk away.
Jump To:
- Video: No-Boil Pasta Bake*
- How To Cook Pasta In The Oven
- How To Make A No-Boil Pasta Bake
- Why Does The Pasta Bake Need To Rest?
- More Delicious Pasta Dinner Recipes
- Podcast Episode: Making No-Boil Pasta Bake
- Delicious No-Boil Pasta Bake Recipe
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Video: No-Boil Pasta Bake*
*NOTE: The instructions as shown in the video are just fine. However, the milk sometimes curdles. We therefore retested the recipe several times to get it just right. Instead of the milk, the recipe now calls for 1 cup of cream and 1 cup of chicken stock. A commenter has done it with no cream and 2 cups of chicken stock and had success. The recipe below has all of these changes made.
How To Cook Pasta In The Oven
The details about the no-bake pasta bake are below. But I often get asked if you can cook pasta in the oven for other purposes. That’s what I’m explaining here first:
I haven’t had great success cooking pasta in water in the oven. The best way to do it is to preheat your oven to 400°F. Then put your pasta in a baking dish or oven-safe pot. If it’s long pasta, like spaghetti, you need to break it up into small pieces (2 inches). The reason is that all of the pasta will need to be submerged in liquid the entire time it’s in the oven and long strands are more likely to jut out.
Then add boiling water to the pan. Use a kettle to boil the water, or boil it on the stove. Although, if you have a functioning stove, I suggest you cook your pasta on there since it turns out better. This is more for when you don’t have a stove. (The reason it turns out better is that the water is able to simmer continuously on the stove. In the oven, it doesn’t seem to stay up at that temperature and the pasta ends up a little bit gummier. It’s perfectly edible and good. Just a bit gummier.)
Make sure the pasta is completely submerged in the very hot water. Add salt, about a tablespoon for 16 ounces of pasta, and stir.
Cover the dish with a tight-fitting lid or aluminum foil. You really want it to have a tight seal. A double layer of foil does this well.
Then put it into the oven for 5 minutes more than what is stated on the pasta box instructions. Test the pasta to see if it is to your liking, and then drain off the water.
How To Make A No-Boil Pasta Bake
While I don’t really like pasta that has been simmered in the oven in water, I do seriously love this dish where you cook the pasta in the oven but it’s cooking in a sauce. I think the reason is that the pasta is soaking up all of that delicious flavor, and the soaked up flavors more than make up for any subtle gumminess. Or maybe the cheese in the dish hides that gumminess? Anyhow, here’s what you do…
Preheat the oven to 400°F. To a 13×9 inch baking dish add uncooked pasta shells, fully-cooked sliced sausage (I buy this roasted pepper and Asiago chicken sausage that is sold fully-cooked in either the organic lunch meat area or with the wieners, depending on your store), some canned diced tomato (with juice – you need the liquid here), seasonings, and shredded mozzarella. Stir.
Top that with heavy cream and chicken stock (a commenter to this recipe tried it with just chicken broth and says it worked great, so you can try that instead, if you’d like. However, my concern is that it will be more bland. You might want to increase the seasonings if you do this).
Cover very tightly with a double layer of aluminum foil and bake for an hour.
At that point the pasta will be cooked, but I like to add some shredded cheese to the top and put it back into the oven, uncovered, to melt the cheese. Then the pasta bake NEEDS TO REST for 15 minutes before serving.
Why Does The Pasta Bake Need To Rest?
The pasta bake is going to come out seeming liquidy. That’s because all of the liquid in the casserole has been really simmering and moving all around due to the intense heat.
What you want is for that liquid to simmer down (lol). But seriously, you want it to stop simmering and settle down. As it settles, it will evaporate a bit, soak into the pasta a bit more, and thicken up.
So absolutely, let it sit on the counter for 15 minutes uncovered before serving. It will still be nice and hot for eating, it just won’t be so wet.
And there you have it: Delicious baked pasta all done in one pan with virtually zero work. Brilliant, right?
More Delicious Pasta Dinner Recipes
If you love a good pasta dinner as much as I do, be sure to try my favorite pasta recipes, linked to below. And, when in search of just the right thing to make for dinner on a weeknight, go over and browse all of myWeeknight Dinner Recipes – there are over 300 of them!
- Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Pasta
- One-Pot Shrimp Pasta Recipe
- Shrimp Scampi Baked Pasta
- Pasta Carbonara Made With Greek Yogurt
- Pasta al Limone Recipe
- Easy One-Pot Pasta Dinner
- Pasta With Sausage And Greens
- Classic Italian Sausage Pasta
Podcast Episode: Making No-Boil Pasta Bake
Listen to me explain briefly about how to make this No-Boil Pasta Bake, with some great tips along the way, by clicking the play button below.
Listen to more Recipe of the Day episodes here.
Delicious No-Boil Pasta Bake Recipe
- Author: Christine Pittman
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 70 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Entrée
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: Italian
DESCRIPTION
This pasta bake is done in one pan and doesn’t require you to even boil the pasta first. Yes, that means the pasta is cooked in the oven! It’s amazing how delicious it is when you literally only need to spend 5 minutes prepping it. This one is going to save your weeknights for sure!
NOTE: This recipe was retested and updated in Nov. 2021 because some commenters noted that it sometimes curdled. We changed the 2 cups whole milk to 1 cup heavy cream and 1 cup stock. We’ve had amazing results with this change (no curdling!), but wanted to share in case you loved the previous version. The sauce is a pretty pink like a vodka sauce and clings to the pasta beautifully without curdling. We also increased the salt from 1/2 teaspoon to 3/4 teaspoon. Enjoy! – Christine xo
Ingredients
UnitsScale
- 8 oz. uncooked dried pasta shells
- 12 oz. (4 links) fully-cooked chicken sausages, sliced 1/4-inch thick
- 1 (28 oz.) can diced tomatoes with the juice
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella, divided
- 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
- 3/4 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. black pepper
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup low-sodium chicken stock
- Heavy duty aluminum foil
- 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- To a 13×9 inch baking dish add the pasta, sausage, diced tomatoes with juice, 1 cup of the mozzarella cheese, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper. Stir.
- Pour the heavy cream and chicken stock over top and make sure that all of the pasta is submerged.
- Cover with two layers of aluminum foil and make sure it is very well sealed.*
- Put it in the oven until the pasta is tender, about 50 minutes.
- Remove from oven and sprinkle with the remaining 1 cup of mozzarella and the Parmesan.
- Return to oven uncovered just until cheese has melted, about 5 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let the pasta bake rest uncovered for 15 minutes before serving. This is important as the sauce really thickens up in this time.
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Notes
*To ensure the pasta fully cooks, crimp the aluminum foil tightly around the edges of the pan so that no steam can escape.
Substitutions:
- If you don’t have heavy cream, half-and-half or milk can be substituted. The sauce will be noticeably thinner, and some cheese curds may naturally form from the acid in the tomatoes mixing with the milk. If it curdles, don’t worry about it. It’s still completely safe to eat and is still completely delicious, it just looks like you added some ricotta to the dish before baking it! Note that a commenter used chicken broth in place of the cream/milk and had good results, so that is worth trying if you don’t have cream, half-and-half, or milk.
- If shell pasta isn’t available, farfalle (bowtie) or rotini (corkscrews) can be used instead.
This recipe was first published on this site in September 2016 and was revised and republished in November 2021. This post contains Amazon affiliate links.
