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Pasta & rice main dishes

Baked pasta with Brussels sprouts

⏱ 60 min🍳 60 min👤 2 pp★★★☆☆

This recipe is perfect for those situations where the fridge has very little to offer but you really want to make something delicious. To make it, in fact, you need just one or two ingredients! A carton of Brussels sprouts, some pasta (the type you have in your store cupboard will be fine), some hard cheese to grate or finely chop, and some béchamel sauce. And that's not the only thing that's good about this recipe, because not only are there only a few simple ingredients, but it's also very quick and easy to make. In short, a delicious, fast recipe, dedicated to vegetable lovers - and others too!

Ingredients

Nutritional values 650 kcal / serving
Protein
24g
Carbohydrates
72g
Fat
28g
Fiber
5g

* approximate values per serving

Information
60 minutes Total time
60 minutes Active time
Serves 2 persons
★★★☆☆ Challenging

Preparation

Boil the Brussels sprouts in salted water. When they are cooked, remove them from the water with a slotted spoon and set aside. Cook the Brussels sprouts in the same water. While the pasta is cooking, cut the sprouts into two or four parts, depending on their size. Make the béchamel sauce. Butter a baking dish. Drain the pasta and mix with all the Brussels sprouts, three-quarters of the béchamel and a generous dose of grated parmesan. Pour everything into the oven dish, then level everything out well with a wooden spoon. Cover with the remaining béchamel sauce and grated parmesan. Bake at 200°C for 30 minutes. Serve hot!

Tips
You can choose which pasta shape you prefer when you make this dish: it's important, however, that the pasta is cooked only until it is just 'al dente', because when it is in the oven it will continue to cook and soften a little more.
Trivia
Have you ever wondered why Brussels sprouts are so called? Well, we're going to tell you! It seems that they came from an area around the city of Brussels in Belgium, where they were cultivated in medieval times.

Step by step

Ingredients
Ingredients
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Additional information

Baked Pasta with Béchamel

On this page, we have illustrated a delicious and vegetarian recipe, that of baked pasta with Brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts are not liked by everyone: served in total simplicity, boiled and seasoned, they can indeed be a bit bitter. But just adding some grated scamorza or simply a bit of béchamel with Grana or Parmesan cheese, and even the most boring of vegetables will become fun. Béchamel is truly a fundamental ingredient for the success of baked pasta. It provides a creaminess and sweetness that are essential to avoid a dry and arid final dish. 

Remember, moreover, that béchamel is your ace in the hole when it comes to vegetable-based dishes. Naturally, you will think of preparing it in the context of timbales or baked pastas that involve the use of meat, such as baked pasta with ragù or with sausage or bacon... but not only that. Pairing béchamel with Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, or broccoli, or even with zucchini, gives a special boost to those ingredients that not everyone loves: vegetables. Give it a try yourself! 

Baked Pasta with Sausage

Of course, we couldn't refrain from spending a few words on baked pasta with sausage. You can create a very simple first course by simply breaking up some sausage in the tomato sauce and then baking everything, with a few spoonfuls of béchamel and some good Grana Padano; or if you have a bit more time, you can make a real sausage ragù, with celery, carrot, and onion, sausage removed from its casing and then crumbled, a splash of red wine, and finally some excellent tomato purée. With this sausage sauce, you can then create your baked pasta by cooking the pasta, tossing it in the sauce, and baking everything. In this case, béchamel is optional, but we recommend using it to add creaminess to the dish. Additionally, by adding a bit of béchamel on the surface of the dish, you will also achieve a nice and inviting crust.

Other Variants of Baked Pasta

Now let's see some variants to try when it comes to baked pasta: it also depends on the season! In autumn, you could try baked pasta with pumpkin or with cauliflower or even with broccoli; in spring, you might try baked pasta with artichokes, and in summer it could be the turn of baked pasta with eggplant.  For baked pasta with meatballs, however, there is no need for a particular season!