I enjoy cooking in the Kitchen. But I also have a life. Family, kids, work, activities, and Yorkies keep me really busy. So it is helpful when I can tackle two dinners at the same time.
Casseroles bring back memories from my childhood. My mom was a great cook. She could cook fancy food, but casseroles are down-home comfort food that she liked to make often.
Casseroles are versatile; you can make them healthy or not; you can use an endless variety of ingredients; and they freeze well.
The basic casserole includes a protein, a pasta/carb, cheese, and a sauce. You can also add veggies. Casseroles are a great way to add vegetables without your kids noticing.
I usually try to use as many healthy ingredients as I can. I typically will use whole wheat pasta, or some pasta with extra protein or nutritional value.
These are two casseroles from my childhood. The Italian casserole tastes like spicy spaghetti, and the Nacho Cheese casserole, well...tastes like Nacho Cheese....with hamburger!
First, gather your ingredients and read through the Recipe! These are not difficult recipe/s, but there are quite a few steps.😁
This is an example (with multiple options) of the ingredients you could include...not including the protein.
Ingredients that I used for the two casseroles below:
* The idea is that you double the amount you cook of the basic recipe and divide the basic recipe between two casseroles. Then you add additional ingredients to make each casserole different.
Basic Ingredients for both Casseroles:
-3 pounds of lean ground beef. You could use regular ground beef, ground turkey or chicken, or even sausage.
- 1 package (1 lb) of pasta. I used whole wheat Bowtie pasta. You could use Rotini, or any pasta you desire.
- One large onion chopped
- two cloves of garlic grated
- salt
- pepper
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Extra Ingredients for Recipe #1: The Italian Casserole
- 2 tablespoons of butter, plus more if needed
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- 1 large carton of mushrooms, any variety, wiped down with a damp cloth and rubbed dry.
(Do not soak them in water, or the mushrooms will soak up the water, and become rubbery), OR one large jar of mushrooms.
- One 24 ounce jar of pasta sauce such as Marinara, spaghetti, vodka cream sauce, etc. You can also make your own sauce from Italian peeled tomatoes, or regular tomato sauce.
- salt
- pepper
- 1 tablespoon of honey or sugar if your sauce is not sweet. It will help with the acidity of the tomatoes.
- 1 small package of pepperoni, sliced (optional)
- 1/4 grated Parmesan cheese for the sauce. This will make the sauce thick, and taste great!
- 1/2 cup to 1 cup of fresh shredded Parmesan cheese for topping
OR 2 sleeves of Ritz crackers and 1 tablespoon of melted butter for the topping.
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Extra Ingredients for Recipe #2: The Nacho Cheese Casserole
- 2 to 3 cans (10 1/2 ounces each) of Campbell's Nacho Cheese Soup
- 1/2 to 1 cup of shredded sharp cheddar cheese
- spices to taste such as salt, pepper, red pepper, smoked paprika
- 1 cup of sharp cheddar cheese for topping
OR 2 sleeves of Ritz crackers and 1 tablespoon of melted butter for topping
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Directions for the Basic Recipe for Both Casserole:
1. Chop up the onions
2. Cook the onion in the olive oil over medium heat until softened. Add the ground beef, and break up and cook until no longer pink.
3. At the same time, start making the pasta sauce, or warm up the jar of sauce on the stove. (Recipe #1) Add the Parmesan cheese to the sauce once the sauce is warm. Cook until the cheese is melted, then let simmer. Add honey (or sugar) if the sauce needs sweetness.
4. At the same time, cook pasta according to the package directions.
When cooking pasta, boil the water, then add the pasta and add salt liberally, "like seawater" is a suggestion I have heard from several cooks. This is your one chance to season the pasta.
Be sure to reserve about one cup of the pasta water before draining the pasta. Add some of this water to the red tomato sauce and to the cheese sauce. The pasta water will add flavor, and help bind the sauce to the pasta.
Pull the pasta off the burner one or two minutes before the time stated on the package directions or until Al dente (Literally means- to the teeth) or still slightly firm when bitten. Then drain the pasta. The pasta will continue to cook once you add it to the sauce and put it in the oven-- so you don't want to overcook the pasta.
5. Carefully add the pasta to the meat mixture, and divide it in half.
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6. Directions for the Italian Casserole- Recipe # 1:
Cook the mushrooms in olive oil and 2 tablespoons of butter on medium-low heat. Do not crowd the pan or the mushrooms will not brown. Also, do not add salt until the mushrooms are brown. Salt releases the juices in the mushroom and delays the browning process. Add a 1/2 teaspoon of salt, once the mushrooms are cooked and browned.
7. Add the cooked mushrooms and 1/2 of the meat/pasta mixture (from the basic recipe) together. Then add the cooked tomatoes sauce (with 1/2 cup of pasta water). Optional: Add sliced pepperoni.
8. Put the mixture into a greased casserole dish. Put shredded Parmesan cheese on top. This recipe can make one big casserole or two smaller casseroles. In the first picture below, I divided the hamburger casserole in two.
Note: You can just make one big casserole....i.e. put in an 11 by 17 casserole dish, or two smaller, 8 X8 or 9X9 casseroles. I cooked one for dinner that night. Heat at 350 degrees for about 3o minutes until warm and bubbly.
I froze the other one. When ready to use, defrost in the refrigerator overnight, and heat as above. Or put the frozen casserole in the oven at 325 degrees for about 45 minutes to an hour until hot and bubbly.
Optional topping: Crushed Ritz crackers. This is the topping my mom always put on her casseroles. I love this topping, and it brings back such sweet memories of my mom. 💕
Take a couple of sleeves of Ritz crackers and crush them in a plastic zip-lock bag using a rolling pin, until fine crumbs. Then add one or two tablespoons of melted butter until the crumbs are just moistened. Spread the cracker mixture over the casserole.
When you cook the casserole in the oven, the buttery cracker mixture becomes brown and slightly nutty.
Put a piece of tinfoil on the top if it looks like the topping is over-browning.
Recipe # 1 is complete! Voila!!
Note: For the Chocolate Mousse Pie recipe in the picture above click here.
9. Directions For The Nacho Cheese Casserole- Recipe #2:
- Mix the other half of the meat/pasta mixture (from the basic recipe) with 2 or 3 cans of nacho cheese soup. Note: add 1/2 cup of pasta water to the soup before adding the cheese mixture to the meat/pasta mixture. I like to add 3 cans because the noodles soak up the cheese.
- Add 1/2 to one cup of shredded cheddar cheese. For variety, you could also add a jar of drained pimientos, or cooked carrots, broccoli, etc.
- Put the mixture into a greased casserole dish. Top with cheddar cheese or my mom's Ritz cracker topping from Recipe #1.
- Use the same cooking instructions from Recipe #1. You can freeze the casserole for later use, or cook in the oven. See above.
Recipe # 2 is complete! Voila! You have just made 2 or more dinners!
Happy eating, and Buon appetito!
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