Baked Penne with Sausage, Beans & Spinach
This easy and delicious casserole is adapted from a recipe featured in Swerve magazine last year. It's a great one-dish meal - the pasta covers your Grains, you get veggies from the tomatoes and spinach and protein from the beans, sausage and cheese. The high sodium and saturated fat content of the sausages and cheeses, however, makes this more of a "sometimes" meal. When we do have it, we make the most of it by choosing some of our favourite, filler-free local sausages from Sunworks Farm, Missing Link or Spolumbo's.
Ingredients (Makes a 9 x 13" casserole, or 8 servings)
- 1 tsp (5 mL) olive oil
- 3 sausages, casings removed
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 5 roma tomatoes, chopped
- 1 can (19 fl oz/540 mL) can white (kidney or navy) beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 can (5.5 fl oz/156 mL) tomato paste, plus 1 can water
- ¼ cup (60 mL) pesto (optional)
- 3 cups (750 mL) whole wheat penne or other short pasta (i.e. rotini, farfalle, etc), uncooked
- 1 bag (10 oz/284 g) baby spinach
- 1½ cups (375 mL) grated mozzarella
- ½ cup (125 mL) grated parmesan cheese
Method
- Preheat oven to 350˚F.
- In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat and cook the sausage, onion and garlic, breaking up the meat until the sausage is cooked through. Add the tomatoes, beans, tomato paste and water and bring to a simmer; reduce the heat, cover and cook for 10 mins, until the sauce thickens and the tomatoes soften. Stir in the pesto and break up the chunks of tomato a bit with a spoon; add some extra water if the sauce seems too thick.
- While the sauce is simmering, cook the pasta in a medium saucepan of boiling water until just before al dente. Drain and toss with the spinach (coarsely tear the spinach up with your hands as you add it) and the hot tomato sauce, which will wilt the spinach. If you like, stir in half the grated cheeses. Pour into baking dish and sprinkle with mozzarella and parmesan.
- Bake uncovered for about 30 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbling and the cheese is golden. If the cheese is browning too quickly, cover loosely with aluminum foil.
Make-Ahead Tip: Follow the recipe until Step 2, then let casserole cool completely before covering and keeping in the fridge overnight, or in the freezer for up to 4 months. Bake for 40-50 minutes if cooking from frozen.
Nutrition Info (per serving)
485 calories, 17 g fat (6 g saturated, 0 g trans), 59 mg cholesterol, 59 g carbohydrate (10 g fibre, 6 g sugar), 26 g protein, 791 mg sodium.
