The Kitchen of Yum

(with homemade red sauce recipe!)

This recipe is the result of flowing creative juices and also needing to get random things out of my kitchen! So when I created this dish, I used half a box of Garden Rotini and half a box of Ziti because we didn’t have a full box of any pasta! You’ll want a full 16oz box of pasta for this, Penne, Rotini, Ziti, Cavatappi, for examples are great to use. I wouldn’t recommend a long pasta like spaghetti or linguini, or short pastas like Macaroni, bowtie, or shells. Stick with the medium spirals or tubular shapes.

Also, I did not have a jar of pasta sauce in the pantry, but I had cans of tomato sauce, so I created my own sauce and it turned out better than I thought. Below I will list the ingredients, but this can also be substituted with a 24oz jar of your favorite red sauce.

Meatball Casserole

Servings; 6-8

1 pound box of Penne pasta (see notes above for other suggestions)

25-30 frozen meatballs (Homestyle or Italian meatballs work! I used Homestyle, Great Value brand. I didn’t measure these, so you can use less or more depending on your preference)

1 – 2 cups Mozzarella cheese, shredded

3 cups chicken broth

24oz jar of red pasta sauce (or use my recipe below for making your own)

Homemade Sauce:

1 15 oz can tomato sauce

1 8 oz can tomato sauce

1 tbsp oregano

1/2 tbsp Italian seasoning

1/2 tbsp parsley

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

1 tbsp sugar

2 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

Whisk the above ingredients together in a medium sized bowl before substituting for the jarred sauce.

Instructions:

1. Grease a 9×13 casserole dish with cooking spray.
2. Preheat oven to 425F
3. Empty the box of pasta into the casserole dish
4. Add in the chicken broth and pasta sauce to the pasta. Give it a stir to make sure all the pasta is coated and submerged in the liquid.
5. Now add the meatballs on top. Spread them out evenly.
6. Sprinkle your cheese on top and spread out to coat everything.
7. Wrap the to of the casserole dish with tin foil and bake for 40 minutes.
8. After the 40 minutes, remove the tin foil and return to oven for 10 minutes to brown the cheese.
9. After the cheese is melted to your liking, remove from oven and enjoy!

This would pair great with the Garlic Breadsticks recipe!