Vegan cheese & veg pasta bake
Course: MainDifficulty: EasyServings
2
servingsPrep time
25
minutesCooking time
10
minutesIngredients
2 garlic cloves
10g fresh basil
200g vegan cheese
1 large courgette / 2 small ones
125g cherry tomates, or 125g tomato
150g pasta – I like protein-packed pea pasta
1tbsp dried basil
15ml balsamic vinegar
1 vegetable stock cube
16g tomato paste
210g finely chopped tomatoes
1tsp sugar
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 240°C / 220°C (fan), and boil a kettle.
- Peel and finely chop or grate the garlic. Grate the vegan cheese (or buy it already grated!), finely chop the basil, including stalks.
- Add the pasta to a pot of boiled water with a pinch of salt, bring to the boil over a high heat and cook for 10 minutes (or follow instructions on the packet) until cooked with a slight bite. Once cooked, drain the pasta and set aside.
- While the pasta is cooking, chop the courgette into quarters lengthways, then slice finely.
- Heat a large pan with a drizzle of olive oil over a medium-high heat, and reboil a kettle (100ml)
- Once the pan is hot, add the sliced courgette with a pinch of salt and cook for 4 mins or until beginning to soften.
- Meanwhile, disolve the stock cube, dried basil, balsamic vinegar, tomato paste and 1 tsp sugar in 100ml boiled water – this is your stock.
- Cut the cherry tomatoes in half – or if you’re using whole tomatoes, cut into pieces.
- Once the courgette is beginning to soften, add the chopped garlic to the pan and cook for 30 seconds. Next, add the stock, the halved cherry tomatoes, and finely chopped tomatoes, and bring to the boil over a high heat. Season with a pinch of salt and a generous grind of black pepper and cook for 4 minutes further.
- Add the drained pasta to the sauce with some chopped basil (save some for garnish!) and mix it up.
- Add half the pasta to an oven-proof dish, and top with half the grated cheese. Add the remaining pasta on top, along with the rest of the vegan cheese and put the tray in the oven for 10 minutes.
- Serve, with extra chopped basil and black pepper on top!
Notes
- Instead of normal pasta I like to use protein-packed pea pasta, like the ones from ZenB. It’s also gluten free!
- Because of the many different types of pasta and vegan cheese, I haven’t added calorie or macros for this recipe.
- If you’re a fan of Nutritional Yeast (nooch!), add this to the top before baking for extra crispy and cheesiness!
@shauny Looks yummie.
This kind of meal can be pretty low protein as vegan cheese doesn’t typically contain any ? so I like to get a protein boost by using pasta that is made from peas, chickpeas, or lentils! It is delicious and as an added bonus is gluten free.
@shauny Looks great, tho that’s a lot of vegan cheese!! ? Haha.As an aside, Mrs Runt (who does the majority of the cooking at Chez Runt) often uses lentils in the sauce to up the protein content.Great recipe, tho. Cheers Shauny
@shauny This looks so good, thanks for sharing the recipe, going to add to my list of recipes to try 🙂
@robtherunt it is quite a lot of cheese haha, you could use less but I tend to add a whole packet which handily comes in 200g. Dunno if you saw my note but I use pea pasta which has lots of protein in ?
@shauny Yes, I saw that you use pea pasta, too, sometimes. As do we. Or some of the fab pastas supplied by Hodmedods: https://hodmedods.co.uk/collections/pasta
Pasta