The easiest way to make a vegetable pasta bake from scratch! This no boil pasta bake comes together in just one pan. The sauce is rich and flavorful, full of roasted veggies with a crispy cheesy topping. It takes a while to cook in the oven but it is a mostly hands off process that only leaves one pan to clean.
Baked pasta with a cheesy topping is one of life’s greatest comfort foods, I think we can all agree. So let me show you the easiest way I have found to build up a veggie pasta bake from scratch with the least work possible. And it’s a recipe that you can flex to your own tastes, so it has the potential to become your new family favorite!
A roasted vegetable pasta bake could be a lot of work, if you go down the route of roasting veggies, making sauce, parboiling pasta, all in separate pans. But if you have enough time to work with, you can just do it all in the oven, in the same pan, by adding your ingredients one step at a time.
This is perfect for a slow Sunday, or a day when you’re home after school and have time to let this cook while you mostly do other things.
Top Tips for Veggie Pasta Bake Success
- You want a large casserole dish, around 9×13 size. But I find they can vary in shape and exact size. Sometimes they are curved so don’t have a lot of flat base for roasting. Sometimes the handles count in their sizing. So just choose whichever one gives you the most flat surface area on the base to allow you to pack in the biggest amount of veggies for roasting. For me, it’s the Pyrex glass lasagne pan – a classic!
- My choice of veggies for roasting were onions, peppers, mushrooms and green beans. You can mix and match here. Zucchini and eggplant would be great additions too. The only veggies I would not recommend are sweet potatoes and squashes, which would disintegrate into the sauce.
- Towards the end of the baking time, we can add some leafy or soft veggies. I go for spinach, but other good choices would be kale, corn, or cherry tomatoes.
- If you want to add some protein, feel free to add some beans, chickpeas or lentils. (If you like the idea of a lentil heavy pasta bake, I do have another easy no boil pasta bake that makes lentils the star!)
- Pesto and olives help to build strong flavor in the sauce. Red or green pesto work equally well. Other ingredients you could use would be fish free Worcestershire sauce, capers, lemon zest, sundried tomatoes or sundried tomato paste.
- If you would prefer to use ready made marinara sauce instead of canned tomatoes, go ahead. If you do this, you won’t need the pesto and you may want to get rid of the sugar in the roasting marinade to stop it from being too sweet. You can also use low sodium veggie stock.
More Easy Vegetarian Pasta Bakes
Easy Roasted Vegetable Pasta Bake (One Pan, No Boil!)
The easiest way to make a vegetable pasta bake from scratch! This no boil pasta bake comes together in just one pan. The sauce is rich and flavorful, full of roasted veggies with a crispy cheesy topping. It takes a while to cook in the oven but it is a mostly hands off process that only leaves one pan to clean.
Ingredients
- 5 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar, see notes
- 1 Tbsp brown sugar
- 10 oz (285 g) mushrooms, quartered if they're larger, halved if they're smaller
- ½ large red onion, sliced
- 1 large bell pepper or sweet pepper, sliced
- 4 oz (115 g) green beans, trimmed
- 6 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 tsp red pepper or chili flakes
- 1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
- 4 Tbsp black or green olives, sliced
- 3 Tbsp red or green pesto
- 1 cup (100 g) grated parmesan, pecorino or Italian hard cheese, see notes
- 10 oz (275 g) dried pasta, rigatoni, penne or ziti work best
- 28 oz (800 g) canned tomatoes, diced or chopped work best
- 1.75 cups (425 ml) vegetable stock
- 1 cup (30 g) fresh baby spinach or kale, chopped
- ½ bunch fresh basil, chopped
- 2 cups (200 g) grated mozzarella
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 430F / 220C / 200C Fan. Meanwhile, gather and prep your roasting veggies first. You will have a chance to gather and prep the remaining ingredients while they are in the oven.
- Let's get those veggies roasting! Scatter the vegetables you intend to roast in a baking dish, making sure they are in a single layer (if there's any extra space in the pan, feel free to add more). Whisk together the balsamic vinegar, olive oil and sugar, then pour it over the veggies and use a spatula to mix everything together well in the pan, ensuring all of the veggies are coated in the glaze. Add extra olive oil if the pan feels too dry.Place in the oven (towards the top) for 15 minutes.5 Tbsp olive oil, 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar, 10 oz mushrooms, 1/2 large red onion, 1 large bell pepper or sweet pepper, 4 oz green beans, 1 Tbsp brown sugar
- Check in on the veggies. We want them a little brown around the edges, and the liquid from the mushrooms should have evaporated for the most part. Give them an extra 5-10 minutes if needed. The cook time will depend a lot on the veggies, the size they are chopped into, and the type of cookware you use, so go with your eyes rather than the clock here!
- Once they're ready, take the pan out of the oven. Immediately add the garlic, red pepper flakes and Italian seasoning and mix through.. The pan will be hot enough to will toast them a little, so you should get a nice hit of the garlic fragrance in the air.6 cloves garlic, 1 Tbsp Italian seasoning, 1 tsp red pepper or chili flakes
- Add the canned tomatoes, pesto and olives and mix everything together.3 Tbsp red or green pesto, 28 oz canned tomatoes, 4 Tbsp black or green olives
- Add the dried pasta and vegetable stock* and mix through. Cover the pan with foil. Bump the oven temperature down now to 400F / 200C / 180C Fan and place the pan back in the oven, in the middle shelf, for 35 minutes. (You don't need to wait for the temperature to adjust before putting it in.)*Add the stock hot if you can – it will help the pasta bake cook quicker. I use an electric kettle to boil water and dissolve a stock cube in a measuring jug so this doesn't add much to the effort.10 oz dried pasta, 1.75 cups vegetable stock
- Check in at the 35 minute mark. Give the pan a stir and see how the pasta is doing. You can move on to the next step once it is soft or at least al dente.The cook time will depend a lot on a) your brand of pasta (cheaper brands tend to cook faster than more premium brands) and b) whether you added the veggie stock hot or cold. If it went in cold, you're looking at closer to 50 minutes.
- Stir the spinach, basil and parmesan cheese through the pasta bake. This is also when you would add corn, beans or any other soft / cooked veggies you might be choosing to add.1 cup fresh baby spinach or kale, 1/2 bunch fresh basil, 1 cup grated parmesan, pecorino or Italian hard cheese
- Top with the grated mozzarella and place back in the oven, uncovered, for another 15 minutes or until the cheesy topping is crisped up to your liking.2 cups grated mozzarella
- Let it rest for 5-10 minutes, or at least until it stops bubbling, then cut in and serve.
Notes
Balsamic vinegar: If you are using a thick, viscose balsamic, stick to 1 tablespoon. If yours is thin and runny, make it 2 tablespoons.
Cheese: If you need this recipe to be vegetarian, note that real Italian DOP parmesan uses calf rennet in its processing so is not technically vegetarian friendly. Depending on where you live in the world, you have options! In the UK, plenty of cheeses which mimic parmesan but go by the name of “Italian hard cheese” will do the job. Look for the V sign on the packaging! In the US, the name “parmesan” is not protected the way it is in the EU so some parmesan cheeses will be American made and use vegetarian rennet. Check out the ingredients list and always avoid the “DOP parmesan”.
Calories: 566kcal, Carbohydrates: 58g, Protein: 25g, Fat: 27g, Saturated Fat: 10g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g, Monounsaturated Fat: 13g, Cholesterol: 41mg, Sodium: 1116mg, Potassium: 858mg, Fiber: 7g, Sugar: 14g, Vitamin A: 2387IU, Vitamin C: 54mg, Calcium: 491mg, Iron: 4mg