Spinach Ricotta Pasta Bake is made with creamy ricotta and loads of spinach stirred through pasta, topped with pasta sauce, cheese and then baked until bubbly and golden. It tastes like a Spinach and Ricotta stuffed shells – but way faster to make!
Fabulous lazy Monday meal – made from scratch, using my cheeky “shake and pour” shortcut pasta sauce!
Spinach and Ricotta
Spinach and ricotta. We stuff things with it (Cannelloni, Rotolo, shells!), we layer things with it, we roll it up in puff pastry and we wrap it in pastry.
So why don’t we stir it through pasta bakes?
This is a lazy Monday meal I’ve been making for years. I know it’s a little different, but it really is tasty. It tastes like spinach and ricotta cannelloni or stuffed shells – but without the labour. 🙌🏻
Look at this pile of gooey, juicy deliciousness….no dry ricotta in MY pasta bakes!
Shake and pour pasta sauce!
Because this is a lazy meal, I make this with my shortcut homemade pasta sauce. It’s a shortcut recipe because I don’t cook it on the stove with sautéed onions and garlic like I ordinarily do. All I do is add pasta sauce flavourings right into a bottle of tomato passata, shake then pour it over the pasta bake.
To compensate for skipping the sautéed garlic and onions, I add extra flavours into the sauce. 🙂
Sub for tomato passata?
Tomato passata is pureed strained raw tomatoes, unflavoured. It’s sold in tall bottles in the pasta section of most supermarkets in Australia nowadays, and costs around the same as canned tomato. If you’re in the US or Canada, I’ve seen it at Walmart and here are a couple of Amazon – Mutti (excellent Italian brand I use) and Cento (a good value one). Or sub with what you know as tomato sauce.
What goes in Spinach Ricotta Pasta Bake
Here’s a snapshot of the ingredients. For convenience, I use frozen spinach here but fresh can be used in a cinch.
As for the ricotta, any type will work here. Some are creamier and softer than others which makes it easy to mix into the pasta.
If yours is the thicker more crumbly type, it’s an easy fix – just stir through some of the pasta cooking water to loosen it up. The starch in the pasta cooking water will make the ricotta mixture bind better than using normal water or milk to loosen the mixture. The same effect as tossing pasta through pasta sauces right before serving – it’s called emulsifying the sauce (what a show off!😂).
This really does taste like a Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni* – without the fiddly stuffing of the cannelloni tubes. Because as much as we all love eating those stuffed tubes of pasta smothered in tomato sauce and molten cheese, nobody’s jumping off the couch to offer to help stuff them. Right?? 😂
So – are you feeling lazy today too? -Nagi x
* For those of you in the US & Canada – cannelloni is basically the same as manicotti, except the tubes are slightly smaller and smooth, no ridges. Just as tasty!
All things Spinach and Ricotta!
-
Baked Spinach and Ricotta Rotolo – and it tastes as spectacular as it looks!
And more big juicy pasta bakes
-
Cheeseburger Casserole (Homemade Hamburger Helper) – OK, so it’s not baked, but it looks like a pasta bake!
-
Chili Mac and Cheese – ditto for this one 🙂
Watch how to make it
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Spinach & Ricotta Pasta Bake
Ingredients
- 300g / 10 oz ziti pasta, uncooked, or other short pasta of choice
- 1 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese , shredded (or more! For topping)
Ricotta Mixture
- 1 lb / 500 g ricotta (Note 1)
- 1/2 cup parmesan cheese , grated
- 2 garlic cloves , crushed
- 350g / 12oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed and excess liquid pressed out
- 1 cup mozzarella cheese , shredded
- 3/4 tsp salt & pepper
Shortcut Pasta Sauce
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves , minced
- 700g / 24oz tomato passata (1 standard bottle) (Note 2)
- 1 tsp EACH onion and garlic powder
- 2 tsp dried Italian Mixed Herbs (Note 3)
- 1/2 tsp dried chili flakes , to taste (optional)
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- Black pepper
- 2 tbsp water (if needed)
To Serve
- Parmesan cheese , grated
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F/180C.
- Pasta Sauce: Pour out about 1/4 cup of the passata (to make room to add flavourings). Add the remaining Pasta Sauce ingredients into the bottle, screw the lid on and give it a shake.
- Cook pasta for time per packet MINUS 1 minute.
- SCOOP OUT 1 mugful pasta cooking water, drain and set aside.
- Ricotta Mixture - Mix Ricotta Mixture ingredients in a very large bowl. Use a splash of pasta cooking water if needed to make it creamy.
- Add pasta and stir to combine. Transfer to a heatproof baking dish.
- Top with Pasta Sauce, top with cheese. Loosely cover with foil.
- Bake for 25 minutes, then remove the cover and bake for a further 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted and bubbly.
- Serve while hot and fresh!
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Originally published September 2015, updated April 2019 with fresh new photos, new writing, new video and most importantly, Life of Dozer section added!
Life of Dozer
Reaping the rewards of the Easter Egg Hunt!
PS Don’t worry, it’s a dog friendly Easter egg!
*overlaps
Impossible to see the recipe as it overlooked the commercials!!! Such a shame ss I want to make it
I cooked it in the slow cooker for 4-5 hours and it was fabulous. Thank you.
Brilliant recipe – easy, quick and tasty. It has become a family staple in short order. I store 1/2 at step 6 and we have it over 2 days when we are busy busy. Fresh spinach works really well. Don’t skimp on the CHEEEEEEESE!
Can I assemble ahead of time and then bake the next day?
We do all the time, I stop at the end of step 6 and finish it on the night I need it. We have it up to 2 days later and it is still divine.
This is my favorite baked pasta! Recipetineats is my favorite go to recipe site – everything Nagi makes is excellent AND she explains everything, including substitutes. Grateful, Nagi!
This was so good and so quick and easy to put together. Lots of deliciousness for minimum effort. Thanks Nagi for another fab recipe!
Nagios could I just use Rao’s marinara sauce in place of passata? If so, how much would I use? Love this recipe. Just have trouble finding passata. My son doesn’t eat meat so this is perfect all in one pot!!!
This recipe is genius! I love cannelloni but I can never be bothered making it. I was searching for something that used lasagne sheets but this recipe came up and once again you have come through with the goods Nagi! And the pasta jar sauce is the best idea ever. Mind blown. Love it.
My family inhaled this dish! so creamy and delicious with sneaky veggies added in!
This is a keeper! Made with a few tweaks based on what I had – fresh sauce, fresh spinach sauteed with onion & garlic, some fresh mozz in the mix. Adding the pasta water made it so creamy, delicious!!
Hey Nagi, I know the US is a bit barbaric with its calling all pasta “macaroni” and how they have “American Cheese” which is just Kraft singles, but in Canada we actually do have passata and cannelloni like the rest of the civilized world.
We are fortunate enough in the US to have a wide variety of pastas to enjoy. Most of us are civilized, too.
When did Jeffrey
Kraft singles become cheese?? And macaroni is it’s own thing, and not always a good thing!!
Of course you do!! 🤣 N x
Hey Nagi, I know Canada is a bit barbaric with its calling all pasta “macaroni” and how they have “Canadian Cheese” which is just Kraft singles, but in America we actually do have passata and cannelloni like the rest of the civilized world.
Yumm! And loved how it saved me the hassle from using cannelloni pasta😊
Hi Nagi, I made this dish quite a few times, and we liked it, but didn’t love it. I’ve now made a few refinements that mean the pan gets cleaned out every time! First of all, use a 500 gram bag of fresh tortellini or ravioli rather than the dried pasta. This also saves the step of having to cook the pasta, since the fresh pasta doesn’t need to be pre-cooked. I also mince all four cloves of garlic and then gently saute in olive oil until softened. Then I divide the garlic in two. I put half in the passata bottle and the other half in the ricotta mixture. Amazingly tasty and easy!
I tried your modified recipe and I loved it!!
This was such a useful tip, i love tortellini so much, but this is the first time I cooked it without them exploding everywhere
I made this tonight and followed it to the letter. Absolutely delicious! Love all of your recipes, Nagi!
Thanks! N x
Nagi and RTE does it again! Delicious as always
At what point do you need the cup of pasta water? Thanks x
Hi Kathy, this is mentioned in step 5 of the instructions 🙂 N x
Do you add the mozzarella to the ricotta mixture or
Just on top once pasta and ricotta is poured into baking dish ?
So, so GOOD!! Simple, but tasty way to use leftover pasta sauce.
Nagi saves the day once again! My husband was originally going to cook dinner, a pot roast in the slow cooker. At around 12:30 I asked him if he was still planning to cook dinner, and he announced he was. I asked how long it would take to cook and he said “i don’t know, let me check the recipe” and it turned out it would need 8 hours to cook. We usually eat dinner at 6 so this was kind of a problem. I told him he could turn the slow cooker to high to cook the roast faster but he didn’t want to do that. “I’ll do pot roast tomorrow” he said “we can fix something else tonight” except by “we” he really was not referring to himself. So I was pinch hitting for dinner tonight and found we had all the ingredients for this…and it was great! I had given everyone modest portions on their plate, stating they could have more if they wanted it. My husband took one bite of his, said ‘this is good!” and then went back into the kitchen and loaded up his plate. 🙂 Thanks, Nagi, for saving dinner!
That’s amazing Margie, I’m so happy it was a hit! N x
I’m making this for dinner tonight, hope it looks as yummy as yours! It would be really useful if you gave the dimensions of the baking tray you use