This easy No-Boil Pasta Bake is the perfect weeknight dinner! Simply mix oven-ready pasta, tomato sauce, Italian sausage, and spinach together. Then bake for a cozy, comforting dinner!
Table of Contents
- This recipe is…
- Why You’ll Love This No-Boil Pasta Bake Recipe
- Pasta with Sausage and Spinach Recipe Ingredients
- Recipe Variations and Modifications
- How to Make No-Boil Pasta Bake
- Pasta with Sausage and Spinach Recipe Tip
- How to Serve Pasta with Sausage and Spinach
- How to Store and Reheat
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Video
- More Favorite Pasta Recipes
- Pasta Bake with Spinach & Sausage (No Boil!) Recipe
This recipe is…
If I told you you could have cheesy baked pasta goodness with less than 10 minutes of work, would you believe me? Let me tell you, it’s possible! For me, this is the ultimate low-effort dinner. It’s easy enough to make when you’re in a pinch (didn’t get to meal prep, had to work late, etc.), but it’s also satisfying enough to make “just because.”
What makes this pasta bake so easy? It doesn’t require any pre-cooking! You don’t have to boil the pasta noodles, brown the ground beef, or chop any vegetables. Instead, the noodles will cook in the oven, we use sliced, pre-cooked Italian chicken sausage for protein, and frozen chopped spinach for an added veggie.
If you’re looking for more family-friendly pasta goodness, try our Cheesy Ham and Noodle Casserole, Classic Stuffed Pasta Shells, or No-Boil Chicken Alfredo Bake.
Why You’ll Love This No-Boil Pasta Bake Recipe
- No boiling! No browning! No chopping!
- Just 10 minutes of prep
- Super crowd-pleasing and family-friendly
- Freezes beautifully
Pasta with Sausage and Spinach Recipe Ingredients
The key to making recipes with simple ingredients great is to make sure that you are using high-quality ingredients to start with. Here’s what you’ll need to make this easy pasta bake. Find ingredient notes (including substitutions and swaps) below.
- Penne Pasta – We successfully made this dish with two types of gluten-free pasta: Jovial and Tinkyada. Both held up great, so you should be able to use any variety of penne (gluten-free or not) in this dish.
- Pasta Sauce – Since this is a simple dish, you’ll want to use your favorite red sauce here to really up the flavor. We recommend Rao’s, Primal Kitchen Foods, or pulling out any homemade sauce stashed away in your freezer.
- Chicken Broth – Most no-boil pasta bakes call for water, but we opted for broth to add a bit more flavor.
- Heavy Cream – Just 1/2 a cup of heavy cream helps add a delicious richness to the pasta. If you’re dairy-free, you can substitute full-fat coconut milk or cashew cream in its place.
- Pre-Cooked Italian Sausage – So you can skip the step of cooking the protein separately, we opted for pre-cooked Italian chicken sausage here (though any pre-cooked sausage will do).
- Frozen Chopped Spinach – We found that frozen, defrosted spinach worked better in this recipe than fresh because you’re able to squeeze all the water out before cooking. Just make sure you squeeze the moisture out REALLY well!
- Cheese – Topping the bake with mozzarella or Italian blend cheese leaves it with a perfectly cheesy crust you won’t be able to get enough of.
A full ingredient list with exact amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
Recipe Variations and Modifications
While we love the classic combination of ingredients used in this easy no-boil pasta recipe, don’t be afraid to mix things up:
- Sausage – swap the chicken sausage for any other kind of pre-cooked sausage. Or, of course, you could use raw sausage and brown it before adding it to the pasta mix if you don’t mind the extra step.
- Pasta shapes – while we call for penne pasta here, you can use any other shapes of regular or gluten-free pasta. We do recommend using a short, tubular or other hollow pasta variety, though (like rigatoni, paccheri, lumache, and cavatappi), since this yields “forkable” bites that soak up the sauce best.
- Greens – thawed frozen spinach works really well in this recipe since you can squeeze out all the water without having to saute it. But you could swap in fresh spinach or kale instead.
- Cheese – we call for a shredded Italian cheese mix here, which usually includes a blend of cheeses like mozzarella, provolone, parmesan, asiago, and/or pecorino-romano. But if you’ve already got one of these cheeses on hand, feel free to swap it in instead. Or, you could use a creamier Italian cheese like ricotta.
How to Make No-Boil Pasta Bake
Once you have all of your ingredients together, all you have to do is stir them together right in the pan — you don’t even need to dirty another dish! Here’s what to do.
Step 1: Add all of the ingredients except the spinach and cheese (so, noodles, sausage, broth, pasta sauce, seasonings, and heavy cream) to a 9×13 inch baking dish.
Step 2: Mix everything together in the dish until the sauce is fully combined, then spread into an even layer.
Step 3: Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil. (This is important! The foil needs to be on very tight to make sure that the pasta can steam. If too much steam gets out, the sauce will start to evaporate and the pasta won’t cook properly.)
Once the pasta is tightly covered, bake it at 400 F for 40 minutes.
Step 4: After 40 minutes, remove the pasta from the oven, take off the lid, and stir in the spinach. (We opted to add the spinach in at the end so that it doesn’t wind up brown and overcooked.) Then, sprinkle the cheese over top.
Return the pan to the oven to bake for an additional 10-15 minutes, until the cheese is browned and bubbly, then remove from the oven and serve.
Pasta with Sausage and Spinach Recipe Tip
Freezing leftovers and make-ahead meals – whether you want to store leftovers or prep meals ahead, this pasta bake freezes well. If you’d like to freeze a whole pasta bake, we recommend baking it in a freezable container (like this one) for 40 minutes but skipping the final baking step.
Instead, after baking for 40 minutes, you’ll stir in the spinach, top with cheese, then let it sit for about an hour before covering and freezing. Once you’re ready to reheat it, bake for 40 minutes, covered, in a 350°F oven, then an additional 15-20 minutes uncovered, until the cheese is browned and bubbly.
If you’d like to freeze individual portions, just bake the pasta all the way through, then spoon into freezer-safe containers. You can reheat individual portions by microwaving for 3-4 minutes, or by baking at 350°F for about 20 minutes.
How to Serve Pasta with Sausage and Spinach
Let the pasta bake cool just slightly until it’s cool enough to handle. Then, slice it and serve. We like to serve it alongside a fresh salad like our Arugula Salad with Lemon & Sea Salt.
How to Store and Reheat
Store leftovers in an airtight container for up to 5 days, or freeze for up to 6 months (see instructions above.)
Frequently Asked Questions
Absolutely! Around here, we love timesaving no-boil pastas for how much time and effort they save. The keys to no-boil pasta success are using the right oven-ready noodles, the right amount of liquid or sauce, and the proper amount of time in the oven. With those elements in place, you can just add the pasta and other ingredients to a baking dish, let the oven work its magic, and be totally hands-off until it bakes to browned and bubbling perfection.
Time-saving no-boil (AKA “oven-ready”) pasta varieties have become super popular in recent years. And since they allow home cooks to skip the steps of waiting for a big pot of water to come to a boil, cooking the noodles for the recommended time, draining, and cooling their noodles before adding them to the oven to bake with other ingredients, it’s no wonder! These pasta varieties are par-boiled in the factory, then mechanically dehydrated, so they can cook up in the oven instead of boiling water.
Here are a few of our favorite sides that are perfect to serve with this dish:
Roasted Veggies – put these on a tray on the bottom rack while the pasta bakes to save time.
Arugula Salad with Lemon & Sea Salt – this simple salad is a great way to round out your meal, and only takes 5 minutes!
Winter Veggie Coleslaw – this coleslaw is a great spin on the traditional side salad, is packed with nutrients, and looks absolutely gorgeous!
Roasted Balsamic Bacon Brussels Sprouts – you can also roast these sprouts on the bottom rack while your pasta cooks, they are perfectly crisp and just a bit tangy from the balsamic vinegar.
Video
More Favorite Pasta Recipes
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Pasta Bake with Spinach & Sausage (No Boil!)
Ingredients
- 12 ounces penne, we recommend this one for gluten-free
- 24 ounces pasta sauce
- 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
- 1/2 cup heavy cream or milk
- 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 12 ounces pre-cooked Italian chicken sausage, sliced into 1/2-inch coins (we used this one)
- 9 ounces frozen spinach, defrosted and squeezed of excess water
- 1 1/2 cups shredded Italian cheese
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 F.
- Add the pasta, sauce, broth, cream, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and sausage to a 9×13 pan and stir the ingredients until well combined.
- Cover the dish as tightly as you can with foil. The foil must be tight in order to steam the pasta. Then, place it in the oven and bake for 40 minutes.
- After 40 minutes, remove the foil and test the pasta for doneness, if it is still a bit tough, cover and cook for an additional 5-10 minutes. If the pasta is fully cooked, stir in the defrosted spinach, sprinkle the mozzarella over top and bake an additional 15 minutes, until cheese is melted and browned.
Nutrition
Delicious! I used HOT sausage that I cooked up ahead of time and fresh spinach. I omitted the salt, because the hot sausage had plenty already. I even screwed up the cooking time and my picky family (who cannot rely on my cooking, bless their hearts) gave it two thumbs up!
SO happy to hear how much your family loved the pasta bake, Aleta! Thank you for sharing this with us!
This was amazing! I omitted the cheese and heavy cream/milk and it still turned out perfect. I think it has even more flavor than traditional pasta and meat sauce from cooking the noodles in the sauce.
That’s so great to hear! Thank you for sharing this with us, Kristen!
That was delicious and so easy to make, thanks for sharing! Used chorizo instead of sausage and it turned out great.
Awesome…so glad you enjoyed it, Anne! What a yummy protein swap!
So, so good!
So glad you loved it, Jessica!!
If I wanted to make ahead for my husband to bake while I’m at work would I bake it first then just have him reheat it for 15-20 min?
That would work great, Andrea! Enjoy!
Made this tonight and it was absolutely delicious!! Thank you , Cassy, for this fabulous recipe! Sharing it with my friends! It’s absolutely perfect for a chilly night .
My whole family loved it! My 3 year old said thank you for making it. Delicious, easy and balanced. Thank you.
Can chickpea pasta be used and will it require a different bake time?
I made this with lentil pasta and it came out great. No differences in timing. My husband and I both loved it and we’ll definitely be making it again.
What an amazing recipe, from an amazing group of women!!
I followed the recipe to a T and used arrabiata sauce for spice and it was amazing!
This will definitely become a staple
Just a note. I made this for a friend with regular pasta, and it took about 20 minutes more for the pasta to cook. But otherwise it’s easy and delicious!
Thank you for the note Allea!
This turned into mush in a pan. My not picky at all, always starving, teenager won’t even touch it.
Sorry to hear that Rebecca, can you share what type of pasta you used? We’ve made it multiple times and never had that result.
I didn’t have the chicken sausage on hand so I browned ground Italian sausage. This dish came together quickly and easily and tasted great. No issue with the pasta cooking — I actually used a double layer of foil because that’s how I bake my rice and it’s perfect every time. Bonus: my family ate spinach!!!
Um, holy cow this is delicious!! So, so easy to throw together! Definitely keeping it in the rotation.
Any ideas for substitutions for the sausage for vegetarians?
Beyond Italian Sausage (plant based) would work perfectly!
Could this be adapted to an instant pot? Nervous about the pasta not cooking all the way through.
Possibly, but I think the liquid ratios and timing would be different. We’ve tested this multiple times now and as long as you make sure that the foil is on tight and the pasta is fully covered with liquid it will cook through!
The pasta will definitely cook all the way through. I have been making my lasagne, using dry noodles, for years. The liquid absorbs into the pasta as it bakes enhancing the flavor and keeps it from being soggy.
Oh! Pasta cooks wonderfully in the instant pot! Dump and go. Just add your liquids to the bottom so you don’t get a burn signal. Don’t stir too much. 5-6 minutes is good.
Oh! Yessss it cooks fully in the oven! Tasted great