Three-Cheese Baked Penne
Ingredients
1 pound penne
Cooking spray
1 pound sweet Italian sausage (turkey or pork, depending on your preference)
1 large bell pepper, finely chopped (I used red)
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1⁄4 teaspoon black pepper
Dash salt
20 grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
2 cloves garlic, minced
16 ounces garlic and herb tomato sauce, or similar tomato product
1 bunch arugula or spinach, chopped (optional)
1 1⁄2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 cup goat cheese, crumbled
1⁄2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated or shredded
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350*F.
2. Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat. Drain and keep warm.
3. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Remove casings from sausage. Add sausage to pan; cook 2 minutes, stirring to crumble. Add bell pepper and next 6 ingredients to pan; sauté 6 minutes or until bell pepper is tender. Stir in tomato sauce. Reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes. Add pasta to pan, tossing gently to coat. Stir in arugula. Spoon pasta mixture into a 2-quart casserole dish coated with cooking spray. Stir in mozzarella and goat cheese; sprinkle with Parmesan. Bake at 350*F for 7 minutes or until bubbly and top is browned.
Note: If you’d like to save your dishwasher, make everything in an ovensafe skillet, skip transferring it to a casserole dish, and bake the casserole in the skillet.
Comments
This is adapted from a Cooking Light recipe. I had some arugula from my CSA box and decided to toss that in at the end; I imagine that spinach would be an equally tasty addition as well. I also used a jar of tomatoes that I’d gotten from the farmer’s market last year instead of the tomato sauce the recipe calls for.
This was really scrumptious and the flavor of the goat cheese shone through nicely. I can see making this in the future and experimenting with different types of sausage, or perhaps even using cubed chicken.
Cooking Light