Simple Baked Pasta with Bolognese Sauce
on Jan 09, 2019, Updated May 07, 2025
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A super solid, super satisfying cold-weather pasta casserole — kind of a deconstructed lasagna.
My family likes nothing better than an Italian, red sauce-y, baked pasta dish on a chilly night. I love how easy they are to throw together. This baked pasta recipe with Bolognese sauce is kind of like an unstructured lasagna.
You can use any meat sauce (or even a vegetarian tomato sauce) in place of the Bolognese in this simple casserole. Just make a simple green salad such as the Classic Caesar Salad, Winter Salad, or Kale Crunch Salad, and you are good to go.
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What's In This Post?
A super solid, super satisfying cold weather pasta casserole—kind of a deconstructed lasagna.
Ingredients
- Short tubular pasta – Any pasta will work, but for a more traditional-looking pasta bake, I go with the short tubular pasta varieties.
- Ricotta – For richness and creaminess.
- Grana Padano cheese – Similar to Parmesan, but with a sweeter, more delicate flavor; read the note below for the riveting history of this delicious cheese.
- Dried oregano and basil – These dried herbs offer earthy and herbaceous flavor.
- Salt and pepper – To taste.
- Bolognese sauce – You can use store-bought or homemade Bolognese sauce.
- Mozzarella cheese – For that irresistible melty topping.
- Fresh basil – To serve, read the note below on how to cut it.
Grana Padano
While most of us think of Parmesan when thinking of sharp, dry, grated Italian cheeses, in fact, Grana Padano is (and has been for a long time) Italy’s best-selling cheese worldwide. Who knew? Grana Padano is a cheese created by monks approximately 1,000 years ago as a way for the dairy farmers of northern Italy’s Po Valley to preserve excess milk from their herds. Again, who knew?
You can buy Grana Padano in chunks or pre-grated. It has a pale yellow color and a surprisingly sweet flavor. It’s made exclusively with milk from Italian Holstein-Friesian cows (you knew that, right? I mean, I did before I looked it up…I just wanted to make sure). The cheese is aged anywhere from 12 to 16 months, 16 to 20 months, or between 20 to 30 months, deepening in flavor and intensity over time. And that’s the Grana Padano lesson of the day.
How to Make Baked Pasta with Bolognese Sauce
- Cook the pasta: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted water according to package directions.
- Make the cheese mixture: Mix the ricotta, Grana Padano, dried oregano, dried basil, salt, and pepper in a medium-sized bowl.
- Assemble: Add the Bolognese sauce to the drained pasta and stir to combine. Transfer the pasta to the baking dish, spoon the ricotta mixture over the top of the pasta, and sprinkle with the grated mozzarella.
- Bake and serve: Bake the casserole for about 30. Serve hot, with the fresh basil sprinkled over the top, some red chile flakes if you want a little kick, and a bit more cheese.
How to Cut Basil
You can chop the basil right before sprinkling (don’t do it far ahead of time, or it will blacken around the edges), or just rip it into tiny bits with your fingers. Or, if you want to make it super pretty, you can chiffonade the basil. What that means is to very thinly slice the basil into strips, which looks cool and restaurant-ey. And it’s dead simple.
Stack up a few basil leaves, one on top of the other — 3 to 5 is good. Roll the leaves up on a cylinder from top to bottom or side to side; either way works. Use a sharp knife to thinly slice across the little basil roll, and you’ll see the cut slivers of basil will unfurl into super thin little ribbons.
What Kids Can Do
Kids can grate the cheese if you are buying it whole or pick the shape of the pasta, such as rigatoni, ziti, penne, or whatever you like. They can measure the ingredients, mix up the ricotta mixture, mix the sauce with the pasta, dollop on the ricotta, and sprinkle on the cheese. This is a very kid-friendly recipe, as long as you make sure they know how to handle the hot noodles while combining them with the sauce.
Make Ahead and Storage
You can assemble this dish in the morning or even the night before and keep it in the fridge, then bake it right before serving.
It makes for great leftovers! Store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days and reheat it in the oven or microwave.
What to Serve With Bolognese Pasta Bake
More Simple Cheesy Pasta Dinners
- One-Skillet Cheesy Beef and Macaroni
- Instant Pot Ziti “Lasagna” with Bolognese Sauce
- Baked Macaroni and Cheese
- Chicken Parmesan Baked Ziti
- Ground Turkey Stuffed Shells
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Simple Baked Pasta with Bolognese Sauce
Ingredients
- ½ pound dried short tubular pasta
- 1 ½ cups ricotta cheese
- ¼ cup Grana Padano cheese
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ teaspoon dried basil
- Kosher salt and ground pepper (to taste)
- 2 cups Bolognese sauce (store-bought or homemade)
- ½ pound grated mozzarella cheese
- chiffonaded fresh basil (to serve)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F.
- Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted water according to package directions.
- While the pasta is cooking, mix together the ricotta, Grana Padano, dried oregano, dried basil, salt, and pepper in a medium-sized bowl.
- Drain the pasta and return it to the pot. Add the Bolognese sauce and stir to combine. Transfer the pasta to a shallow 2-quart baking dish. Spoon tablespoons of the ricotta mixture over the top of the pasta, tucking it down into the pasta slightly. Sprinkle the top with the grated mozzarella.
- Bake the casserole for about 30 minutes until everything is hot, the cheese is melted, and the top is golden brown. Serve hot, with the basil sprinkled over the top.
