This Month's Freezer Meal: Easy Pasta Bake

Easy-Pasta-Bake-Header
Are you ready for another freezer safe recipe? On the second Monday of every month, I share with you a delicious and easy freezer safe recipe. I have done a couple of breakfast recipes, a dessert and now I am going to share an easy pasta bake recipe! AND, this pasta bake has a twist to it… it has a special ‘white sauce’ with sour cream AND… cream cheese in it! Yep, you heard me right… cream cheese. I also put another twist on this recipe and made a ‘kid safe’ version with a jar of regular spaghetti sauce and a ‘grown up’ version with a jar of Trader Joe’s Organic Vodka Sauce. Yum!! Are you ready for the recipe?

Ingredients
This recipe makes TWO 9×13 pans of this easy pasta bake, so you can enjoy one immediately and you can freeze the other… or freeze both, it is up to you!

Step One
0_Prepare_Cook-noodles
Pre-heat the oven to 350. Place the cream cheese on top of the oven so it ‘softens’ a bit as the oven warms up. Then you will want to cook the noodles in boiling water and brown the meat.

Step Two
1Prepare_Noodles
Grease the 9×13 pans and then split up the spaghetti noodles in the pans as the bottom layer.

Step Three
2_Cream-Cheese-and-Sour-Cream-Mixed

Now, you’ll make the sour cream and cream cheese mixture… dump both in a bowl and mix well, I used a fork and sort of mashed the cream cheese into the sour cream into it became more of a creamy mixture. Then, put half of this mixture into each 9×13 pan on top of the spaghetti noodles. I used a spatula and sort of mixed it into the noodles, since is sort of a clumpy mixture.

Step Four
3_Sauce-and-hamburger
Then, add the spaghetti sauce to the hamburger meat and let it simmer for a bit on the stove. Once it has heated through, pour over the cream cheese/sour cream mixture. Since I purchased regular spaghetti sauce for one casserole dish and Vodka sauce for the other, I prepared these both separately on the stove.

Vodka-Sauce
Have you ever had Vodka sauce before? Yum! Can’t wait to try this grown up version of this easy pasta bake! This was the one I decided to freeze for later…

Step Five
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Sprinkle a bag of shredded cheddar cheese on each casserole. Trust me, it is really good with all of that cheese! Then plop it in the oven for 20 minutes!

DONE_Close-up
And, out of the oven it looks like THIS… a gooey, delicious baked pasta treat with a delicious creamy hidden white sauce that gives it a little extra flavor! YUM! You will LOVE it!

DONE_REAL-close-up
We ate this with garlic buttered croissant rolls from Pillsbury and if I would have had more time… I would have loved a nice green salad with this. This cold weather really makes me crave casseroles! And, I will be enjoying the leftovers tomorrow!

Freezer-Instructions
If you save one of the casseroles for later, wrap it up tightly and store in the freezer. I always write the baking directions on the foil so I can easily reference them later. Don’t forget to thaw it overnight, then bake it for 20 minutes at 350.

DONE_Full-plate
Are you ready for the recipe? You can find it below, along with the other freezer meals I have prepared this year.

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Easy Pasta Bake
2 boxes of spaghetti noodles
2 8 oz blocks of cream cheese
2 8 oz Tubs of sour cream
2 Jars of Spaghetti Sauce (I did one jar of spaghetti sauce and 1 jar of Vodka sauce)
2 Bags of shredded cheddar cheese
1 package of ground chuck to split between the casseroles

1. Boil spaghetti noodles until done. At the same time, brown the ground chuck over stove top.
2. Grease 2 9×13 pans and pour half of the spaghetti noodles into each pan
3. Mix cream cheese and sour cream in a bowl and then spread half of it on top of spaghetti noodles in each 9×13 pan
4. Add spaghetti sauce to the meat and heat through… if you are using two different kinds of spaghetti sauce, prepare one at a time. Pour 1 jar of spaghetti sauce and half of the meat into each 9×13 pan.
5. Sprinkle 1 bag of shredded cheddar cheese onto each 9×13 pan
6. Put 1 casserole in the oven and bake for 20 minutes at 350. Wrap the other casserole and write freezer directions on it (Thaw out overnight, Bake for 20 minutes at 350).