This chili pasta bake makes a delicious and easy dinner and if you want to prepare enough to feed a lot of people the ingredients can easily be doubled. Preparing this recipe is simple—a ground beef mixture is prepared on the stovetop and mixed with cooked pasta shells and then placed into a casserole dish and topped off with shredded cheese. The ground beef mixtures get a lot of its flavor from chili powder and cumin. You can either use kidney beans or black beans for this recipe, I prefer black beans. You can also experiment with different types of cheeses on top—I like a Mexican cheese blend. This dish goes great served with sour cream and green onions on top. Enjoy.
Chili Pasta Bake Recipe
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 Servings 1x
Ingredients
Scale
- ½ tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1lb ground beef
- 1 medium onion (chopped)
- 1 dash salt
- 1 dash ground black pepper
- 1/2lb cooked medium shells
- 15 ounces tomato sauce
- 1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes with green chilies
- 1 (15 ounce) black beans (drained and rinsed)
- 1 ½ tablespoons chili powder
- 2 teaspoons cumin
- 3 dashes cayenne pepper
- ¼ cup of water
- 2 cups shredded Mexican cheese blend
- ½ cups sour cream
- 4 tablespoons chopped green onions
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and sauté for 3 minutes.
- Add the ground beef and cook while breaking up into chunks with a spatula until no longer pink. Season with salt and pepper.
- While the ground beef is cooking, boil the pasta according to package directions until al dente. Drain and set aside.
- Add the tomato sauce to the ground beef mixture. Add diced tomatoes and green chilies, beans, chili powder, cumin, cayenne, and water. Mix well and simmer for about 5 minutes. Stir in the cooked pasta until well combined.
- Lightly grease a 9×13 inch baking dish. Pour the chili and pasta mixture into the dish. Flatten the mixture out with a spatula and top with cheese.
- Place into the oven and bake at 350 degrees F. for 30 minutes or until the edges are bubbling and the cheese has melted.
- Spoon into serving dishes and top with sour cream and green onions.