Baked Pasta with Fresh Mozzarella

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This baked pasta with fresh mozzarella is a recipe made mostly from leftover kitchen scraps – a handful of kale here, a bit of mixed mushrooms there and random leftover pizza ingredients including the fresh mozzarella cheese. You can bake this pasta in the air fryer (it took me only 5 minutes!) or oven. I like fresh mozzarella cheese for its milky, soft, and delicately mild flavour as compared to shredded cheese.

See Also:

• Creamy Portobello Mushroom & Kale Pasta
• Mushroom Margherita Mini Pizza

More Pasta Ideas:

• Baked Cheesy Bolognese Pasta
• Shrimp Scampi Pasta
• Mango Salsa Pasta
• Creamy Uni (Sea Urchin) Pasta

INGREDIENTS

These are the main ingredients for my baked pasta with fresh mozzarella:

1. Pasta – any type such as penne, spiral pasta, fusilli and spaghetti. I’m specifically using whole wheat pasta which is a complex carb. I particularly like whole wheat pasta for this recipe, because its firmer texture make it less likely to overcook after baking.
2. Kitchen scraps! You can use any leftovers and they can be in scraps proportion. I used a small handful of kale (used as the photography backdrop for this recipe), a few cherry tomatoes + olives and a small piece onion. Use any dried herbs blend and garlic salt to season the pasta.
3. Mushroom scraps – You can use any leftover mushrooms, frozen and/or fresh, in any amount, as I did for this recipe.
4. Fresh mozzarella cheese – You can recognise fresh mozzarella in the supermarkets by the little pouches they come in as they have to be immersed in liquid until ready to use.
5. Pasta sauce – I used a 2 in 1 pizza & pasta sauce. It was the first time I am using it for pasta, and I found the taste a bit tart. Next time I’ll try another brand of pasta sauce.

STEPS-BY-STEPS

Here are the simple steps:

1. Cook pasta and kale in boiling salted water. Drain them in a colander and set aside the pasta cooking water.
2. Make a quick one-pan pasta with all the ingredients. Add pasta water to bind the pasta ingredients together.
3. Before baking – Add pasta to a casserole lined with baking paper. Garnish with fresh cheese pieces, cherry tomato and olives.
4. After baking – The pasta looks great after the fresh mozzarella cheese is melted. It has a softer look and taste than shredded cheese.
5. Garnish and serve :)