Nov 22, 2016 in beef, blog, food, main dish, cream, ground beef, mozzarella cheese, nutmeg, spinach, tortellini. Read the original on: Or Whatever You Do
Or Whatever You DoBaked Tortellini Recipe
Baked tortellini is a super easy dish to whip together, and is loaded with veggies and cheese. Some call it “lazy-man’s lasagna”, some call it “Italian Meatloaf”, I call it DELICIOUS.
This post was sponsored by Gourmet Garden! Thanks for supporting my sponsors, as they help make this site possible.
Anytime I can come up with another easy pasta recipe, I’m alllll about it. My kids love pasta, as do I, so when I can change it up a bit I jump at that opportunity.
This baked tortellini has an awesome meatball layer on the bottom, is topped with a creamed spinach mixture, and the tortellini, and then copious amounts of sauce and cheese. It uses the same basic recipe as my Meatball Stuffed Manicotti.
Start by whipping together a super simple herbed marinara sauce. This one comes together in about 15 minutes. It is tomato sauce, herbs, a little sugar, and some really good parmesan. Super simple, but really delicious. If you really want to and have a favorite jarred variety, feel free to use that instead.
Once your sauce is cooking, you can start putting together the meat”ball” layer. It is more like a little Italian Meatloaf layer since it isn’t actually rolled into balls.
I love using Gourmet Garden herbs for this. You get the flavor of fresh herbs, but not the cost. Plus these last for weeks in the fridge, and months in the freezer.
Once you have your meat layer mixed and in your 9×9 pan, start on your spinach layer.
Make sure and use bagged frozen spinach for this one. It is easier to break apart before you put it in the pan. You can sub fresh spinach for this if you’d rather. Just simmer it in the pan with the sauce for a few minutes until it is wilted.
After the spinach mixture, dump on those tortellinis!
Top the pasta with a bunch of sauce, and then cover that with the mozzarella cheese.
Bake that for 40-50 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbly and the meat is fully cooked to at least 160 degrees.
If the cheese starts to brown before this happens, cover it with non-stick foil (or foil that’s been sprayed liberally with non-stick spray).
If you want to get super fancy, I highly suggest making this garlic fry bread to serve with these. They are AH-mazing.
* You can substitute 2 large jars of your favorite ready-made spaghetti sauce in this if you’d like.
Read the original on: Or Whatever You Do
OrWhateverYouDo was born in 2010. Lots has changed since then, but not my love for food photography and content creation!