Garlic Chicken & Prosciutto Pasta Bake | Slimming Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How to make pasta bake from a jar? ›

Instructions: As easy as 1, 2, 3...1 Preheat your oven (200°C/Gas mark 6/Fan 180°C). 2 Put 200g dry pasta into a 1.5L shallow ovenproof dish. Pour on the sauce and fill the empty jar to the top of the label with cold water and stir into the pasta, coating well. 3 Bake uncovered, for 25 minutes.

Dried pasta needs to be par-boiled, then drained before using it in baked dishes. Just boil for half the time specified on the package. There is a type of dried no-boil lasagna sheets that don't require par-boiling, but they need extra water added to the sauce.

Most baked pasta recipes instruct you to boil the noodles until cooked halfway before baking them. This allows the pasta to finish cooking in the oven as it bathes in the sauce.

It's so easy and inexpensive to make your own, but if you're pushed for time, any shop-bought tomato-based pasta sauce will be fine. I will admit to using these quite regularly! Just check the ingredients list first – it should be short and all ingredients should be recognisable!

For Baked Pasta Dishes

As for picking the perfect pasta shape, we recommend choosing a short cut—like Penne, Shells or Rigatoni—with hollow middles, twists or scoop-like shapes to capture all the goodness of your baked pasta: sauces, small ingredients and melty cheeses galore.

“It's my first time cooking baked ziti and when I took it out the oven, the top layer of pasta was a little hard/dry. Why?” It should be a little dry and crunchy. But if it is excessively hard, then the most likely cause is that it was cooked for too long or at too high a cooking temperature.

The best way to use jarred sauce on spaghetti is to heat it up in a saucepan over medium heat until it is hot and bubbly. Once it is hot, add the sauce to the cooked spaghetti and stir to combine. Serve the spaghetti with your favorite toppings.

Tossing in strips of basil, a sprig of thyme or some oregano can take your sauce to the next level. Although fresh herbs might pop a bit more, dried herbs and spices can work just as well. Sprinkling in some red pepper flakes, a pinch of parsley and a dash of salt and pepper can liven up your jarred pasta sauce.