If there’s one way to feed a large family or to have extra leftovers for the week, you can always count on a hearty, delicious, baked pasta casserole. This Baked Mostaccioli checks all those boxes and more! It’s made with a flavorful Italian sausage meat sauce, crushed tomatoes, and layers of pasta and melty cheese. Whenever I make a big pasta dish like this one, it always makes enough to feed my family for 2 nights! #winning
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What Is Mostaccioli?
Mostaccioli is a type of penne pasta also known as penne lisce. It has a tubular shape with angled cut ends and a smooth or sometimes ridged surface. This Italian pasta is often used in baked pasta casseroles, just like this one, and holds up well to hearty meat sauces. You can easily substitute regular penne pasta if you can’t find mostaccioli pasta.
Ingredients For Baked Mostaccioli
Here’s everything that you need to make this cheesy, hearty, Mostaccioli recipe:
- Mostaccioli: We’re using just 8 oz. or ½ lb. of mostaccioli pasta in this recipe.
- Italian Sausage: I used mild Italian sausage instead of ground beef for an extra boost of flavor, but you can substitute with ground beef or even ground turkey if you prefer.
- Onion and garlic: Aromatics like onion and garlic give the pasta sauce lots of flavor.
- Tomato paste: A little bit of tomato paste added to the sauce helps thicken it up and intensifies the tomato flavor.
- Crushed and Diced Tomatoes: Two types of canned tomatoes add texture, flavor, and build the sauce for this recipe. You can also use a jar of store-bought pasta sauce or make our homemade marinara sauce instead!
- Seasoning: A mix of Italian seasoning, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper season the rest of the meat sauce. And a little bit of sugar to balance the acidity of the tomatoes.
- Cheese Layer: The cheese layer is made with a combination of ricotta, mozzarella, and parmesan cheese. It’s then seasoned with salt, pepper, and some fresh chopped parsley. I’ve used this cheese combination a few times in recipes like my lasagna soup and stuffed shells. It’s so good and tastes great with this baked pasta recipe!
Recipe Variations
- Substitute the Italian sausage for ground beef if that’s what you have on hand. You can also check to see if your local store carries Italian turkey sausage instead.
- Got a favorite brand of marinara sauce? Feel free to use that in place of canned & crushed tomatoes to help make your pasta sauce.
- You can easily substitute mostaccioli pasta for penne or ziti pasta. You can also try out our Baked Ziti recipe if you love baked pasta recipes as much as I do ;)
Serving Suggestions
I always love serving Italian pasta dishes with some fresh homemade garlic bread. It’s super easy to make and tastes so much better than store-bought garlic bread. Even though this dish is pretty hearty on its own, you can also add a simple side salad or Caesar salad to complete the meal.
Baked Mostaccioli
Servings 8Ingredients
- 8 oz. mostaccioli pasta ($1.00)
- 1/2 Tbsp cooking oil ($0.03)
- 1 lb. mild Italian sausage ($4.79)
- 1 small yellow onion, diced ($0.42)
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced ($0.16)
- 1 Tbsp Italian seasoning ($0.30)
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder ($0.05)
- 1/2 tsp salt ($0.03)
- 1/4 tsp freshly cracked black pepper ($0.02)
- 3 oz. tomato paste ($0.50)
- 1 15oz. can crushed tomatoes ($1.00)
- 1 14.5oz. can diced tomatoes ($1.00)
- 1/2 Tbsp sugar ($0.05)
Cheese Layer
- 15 oz. whole milk ricotta cheese ($3.39)
- 1 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella, divided ($1.87)
- 1/2 cup grated parmesan, divided ($0.58)
- 2 Tbsp fresh chopped parsley ($0.12)
- 1/4 tsp salt ($0.02)
- 1/4 tsp freshly cracked black pepper ($0.02)
- 1 large egg, beaten ($0.18)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, then add the pasta. Cook the pasta until they’re al dente, making sure not to over cook them. Drain in a colander and then rinse briefly with cool water and set aside.
- Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add the cooking oil. Brown the Italian sausage.
- Once the sausage has browned, add the diced onion and minced garlic to the skillet. Sauté over medium heat until the onion is translucent and the garlic is fragrant.
- Next add the Italian seasoning, garlic powder, salt, black pepper, and tomato paste to the skillet. Stir until combined. Then add the crushed and diced tomatoes and sugar to the skillet. Stir everything together until well combined. Reduce the heat to low and allow the mixture to simmer for 3 minutes.
- Now add the cooked pasta to the skillet and carefully mix together with the meat sauce.
- While the sauce is simmering, make the cheese filling. In a medium bowl add the ricotta, 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella, 1/4 cup grated parmesan, chopped parsley, salt, black pepper, and the egg. Stir all of the ingredients together well.
- Now it’s time to assemble. In a large 9×13-inch casserole dish add half of the pasta sauce in the bottom of the dish. This will serve as the first layer. Next spread the cheese mixture on top of the pasta sauce. Now add the rest of the pasta sauce on top of the cheese in an even layer.
- Sprinkle 1 cup shredded mozzarella and 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese over the top.
- Loosely place some tented aluminum foil over the casserole dish and bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes remove the foil and bake uncovered for 10 more minutes, or until the sauce is bubbling up around the edges. Serve hot and enjoy!
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Nutrition
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How to Make Baked Mostaccioli – Step by Step Photos
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, then add 8oz. (1/2 lb.) mostaccioli pasta. Cook the pasta until they’re al dente, making sure not to over cook them. Drain in a colander and then rinse briefly with cool water and set aside.
Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add 1/2 tbsp cooking oil. Brown 1 lb. mild Italian sausage.
Once the sausage has browned, add 1 diced yellow onion and 2 minced garlic cloves to the skillet. Sauté over medium heat until the onion is translucent and the garlic is fragrant.
Next add 1 Tbsp Italian seasoning, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp black pepper, and 3 oz. tomato paste to the skillet. Stir until combined.
Then add 1-15 oz. can crushed tomatoes, 1-14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes, and 1/2 Tbsp sugar to the skillet. Stir everything together until well combined. Reduce the heat to low and allow the mixture to simmer for 3 minutes.
Now add the cooked pasta to the skillet and carefully mix together with the meat sauce.
While the sauce is simmering, make the cheese filling. In a medium bowl add 15 oz. whole milk ricotta, 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella, 1/4 cup grated parmesan, 2 Tbsp fresh chopped parsley, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp black pepper, and 1 large beaten egg. Stir all of the ingredients together well.
Now it’s time to assemble. In a large 9×13-inch casserole dish add half of the pasta sauce in the bottom of the dish. This will serve as the first layer. Next spread the cheese mixture on top of the pasta sauce.
Now add the rest of the pasta sauce on top of the cheese in an even layer.
Now add the rest of the pasta sauce on top of the cheese in an even layer. Then sprinkle 1 cup shredded mozzarella and 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese over the top. Loosely place some tented aluminum foil over the casserole dish and bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes remove the foil and bake uncovered for 10 more minutes, or until the sauce is bubbling up around the edges.
Serve this hearty baked mostaccioli pasta dish with some crusty garlic bread and maybe a quick side salad and enjoy!
It was fine. Easy enough to make. A 9×13 baking dish is unnecessary. I used a 1.8qt and it was sufficient. The dish would also benefit from the use of spicy Italian sausage to better balance the flavors since the dish is devoid of any heat.
The recipe has a good base, but needs some fixes. The biggest is that the amount of pasta is too small, and definitely should be bumped up to 12 or 16 oz of pasta. I tested first using just the 8 oz and its only enough to make sad thin layers and barely fill half the pan. Using a full 15.5 oz box filled the my 9×13 pyrex to the brim, so 12 may fit better. Also the formatting of the recipe itself is a bit odd, I feel like steps 5 and 6 could be reversed to make it flow more smoothly. The use of “pasta sauce” for the layering steps is also a bit confusing at first glance, using just “pasta” would improve clarity.
I didn’t leave a rating since I made changes to the recipe so it wouldn’t be fair to rate the taste. But it was very tasty!
Super cheesy and delicious! I used frozen tomato puree from our garden in place of the canned tomatoes and it worked well. Just cooked the sauce for about half an hour before starting the pasta
I also think you could double the sauce and pasta and it would still be plenty cheesy
Loved this recipe, but a note: I had to double the pasta (from 8oz to 16oz)! I initially followed the recipe exactly, but the pasta looked waaay saucier than the pictures, plus the pasta only just covered the bottom of the casserole dish. I doubled the pasta, tossed it in the sauce again, and the recipe was just right!
This looks so good! If I wanted to add eggplant (because I love eggplant and it goes so well with pasta), how would you suggest doing it? Roast in slices and then just layer them in, or some other way?
I can’t fully guide you there without testing it out! I would lean towards maybe salting them first to draw out some liquid and bitterness, then roasting for bit before layering it in, but I don’t know for sure without trying it both ways first.
I added zucchini to the meat sause and cooked it with the meat. It was delicious. Eggplant is a great idea I think and for me, I’d diced it, add oils roast first and add it to the sauce. I think eggplant against the ricotta turns it an odd color, so I don’t think I’d slice it and layer.
This comment is about your clever method. Mixing the sauce with the pasta made it very simple to portion out into my six small casseroles. It was just stiff enough to easily spread the ricotta mixture over the “layers”. I’m sorry to say that the adds are so annoying, moving around, blinking etc. And they don’t stop even when you look at them.