• By Francesca Rilotelli
• Published 10/29/2012

Pasta recipes are the perfect tasty treat for a hungry family during mid-week. The only problem is, what should you go for? Well, let me make a suggestion. The humble pasta bake may have been a student favourite for decades, but done right this cheesy beast can satisfy even the hungriest families – and it’ll taste great too!

The fantastic thing about this dish also I that you can add pretty much whatever you like and it will still work – well, within reason! Tuna is obviously a pretty good start when it comes to sitting down and thinking about what you want to put in your pasta bake, but I always like to add a couple of offbeat ingredients such as onions, chillis and courgettes for the purpose of texture and flavour.

To get things started with this recipe you’ll need to begin my cooking the pasta. I often use penne, but any other variations will work just as well, apart from spaghetti – that’s obviously a ‘no no’! Next up, you’ll need to get started on the sauce. Melt 50g of butter in a pan and add another 50g of plain flour before stirring until it turns slightly dark. Add milk and mustard powder to the mix and simmer gently for a while until it’s nice and thick.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in most of the cheese, and all the sweetcorn, peas and spring onion. Season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Stir the cooked pasta into the sauce.

To finish, spoon the tuna into the bottom of an ovenproof dish and pour over the pasta and sauce. Tap the dish gently so the sauce pours into every nook and cranny, sprinkle over the remaining grated cheese and bake for twenty minutes.

Enjoy!

About the Author : Francesca Rilotelli is writing about pasta recipes