Speed Pasta Bake

January 19th, 2022
food, kids
Lily loves pasta bake: pasta, tomato sauce, and cheese baked until the cheese at the top is a bit crispy. Unfortunately, this needs about 45min in the oven. But, just like with quesadillas, you can make it much faster by doing most of the heating in the microwave:
  1. Combine leftover pasta, jarred tomato sauce, and grated cheese in a dish and that is safe for both the microwave and the oven. Put additional grated cheese on top.

  2. Microwave until piping hot.

  3. Broil for about two minutes, or until the cheese is browned and crispy. This goes very fast, and the window between "just right" and "burnt" is small.

It ends up almost identical to the oven-only version, with slightly more active time and far less wall time.

I wonder why I don't see more recipes like this, which use the microwave for the "get things hot" phase before switching to a pan or oven for browning?

I forgot to take a picture before serving, but here's what it looks like after Lily had two helpings:

Referenced in: Lazy Baked Mac and Cheese

Comment via: facebook, lesswrong, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Ozy and Vasili Review Lilo and Stitch

Sometimes my seven-year-old, Vasili, wants to see some godawful movie that makes me want to melt my eyeballs out of my head.

via Thing of Things June 27, 2025

Elixir's Last Dance

On May 18th, the contra dance band Elixir had their last gig ever. The dance was packed: there were three hundred people. It was the only dance BIDA has ever done where they sold tickets. People flew from across the country just to hear Elixir play one la…

via Lily Wise's Blog Posts June 5, 2025

Workshop House case study

Lauren Hoffman interviewed me about Workshop House and wrote this post about a community I’m working on building in DC.

via Home April 30, 2025

more     (via openring)