re•cipe: veggie baked pasta

Ever eat something you haven't in awhile and think to yourself  "wow, this is good! why did I ever stop eating this!?" Usually this happens to me with old school candy (jolly ranchers, anyone?), but when I chose to go vegetarian, it was zucchini that surprised me with this situation. When they are served to me, I love them. I just forget about them and never make them on my own.

Since making the switch, I've been using zucchini and squash in general more and more, with pasta in particular. One of our go-to lazy night dinners is spaghetti with zucchini (yum!). My family came over for Easter, and I had prepared a veggie lasagna. I pureed most veggies and added them to the sauce, but left the zucchini in chunks to be enjoyed (mom loved it!)

Since I found myself making my third variation of pasta with zucchini recently, I figured it was finally time to share a recipe. It is super easy and you can use whatever veggies you have on hand or whatever your favorites may be. And again, for picky eaters, you can puree the veggies in a food processor so they get the nutrients without picking through chunks!

Veggie Baked Pasta

You Will Need:

112-oz box penne veggie or whole grain  pasta

1 16-oz jar pasta sauce of choice (I like traditional marinara)

1 zucchini

1 green bell pepper

(any veggies of choice!)

Shredded cheese of choice

Olive oil

Optional: Italian seasoning and garlic salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Grease a 9x13 baking dish with olive oil. Sprinkle garlic salt and Italian seasoning if desired.

Cook pasta according to package directions and drain.
Chop vegetables while pasta is cooking and mix with sauce.

Spread half of drained pasta in dish.
Top with half of sauce mixture and then cover sauce layer with shredded cheese.

Repeat layering process with pasta, sauce, and cheese.

Cover dish with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour.


Keep an eye on Back Home Again to see this recipe featured. Thank you, Holly!

If you liked this recipe, please show some love to two ladies on my sidebar who are fellow veggie lovers. Their recipes outshine anything I could put on here:

Mary @ Mary Makes Dinner and Cindy @ Vegetarian Mamma! The pics alone should make your mouths water. I'm especially wanting to try Mary's Chinese Cucumber Salad, and Cindy's black bean avocado quesadillas have become an in-home staple of mine! They are the reason I finally gave avocados a second try.


This recipe is also linked up at Coastal Charm.