This recipe is a firm favourite in our house, even with my very fussy daughter. It’s not what you’d call diet conscious, with plenty of tasty cheese and a tub of creme fraiche among the ingredients, but it doesn’t hurt once in a while fortnight.
Tuna Pasta Bake
- 300g pasta*
- 200g frozen sweetcorn
- 200g tub of half fat creme fraiche**
- one tin of tuna
- 125g mature cheddar, grated
- 200g frozen spinach
- 1/2tsp ground nutmeg
- black pepper
Cook the pasta for 2-3 minutes less than usual as it will continue to cook in the oven and I don’t like it to be soggy.
Cook the frozen sweetcorn. You can do this by adding it to the pasta pan towards the end or cook separately.
Drain the pasta and sweetcorn (it doesn’t matter if there is a little of the cooking water left in the pan) and stir in the creme fraiche, along with the nutmeg and a good grind of black pepper.
Meanwhile cook the spinach. I buy the one that’s chopped…..
….and cook in the microwave without any water for 3 minutes.
Drain and flake the tuna and add to the mixture.
Add the grated cheese and stir well.
At this point I remove a portion for the fussy daughter and then stir the drained spinach into the remainder.
Put into a lidded oven dish and bake at 180 for about 20 minutes.
You could top with grated cheese and bake in an open dish, but I think it’s fairly calorific already so I cook it in a casserole dish, to stop it drying out too much.
Remove the lid for the last few minutes for added crunch.
*I like to use penne when I make this, but any pasta shape would do. I boil the kettle, to fill the pasta pan, to speed things up a bit. The whole thing takes a little over 30 minutes, including the time in the oven.
It can also be mixed up in advance and kept in the fridge ready to bake when you come in from work. Just keep it in the oven a little longer.
**I sometimes buy the slightly larger 250g tub of creme fraiche and reserve a bit to make this other favourite for lunch the next day.
There’s never any left around here and it’s always a race to see who can get to those crisped up bits around the edge of the dish first.
11 comments:
It sounds delicious....my DD would love this.
I love that frozen spinach, we always have some in the freezer.
I love tuna but not hot tuna! What I do is boil some pasta then while that's cooking put tuna, sweetcorn, grated cheese and mayo in to a bowl. When the pasta's cooked I drain it and add it to the tuna mayo mix. Yumm
I could try it with wilted spinach too, thanks for the idea
Jakix
It sounds very tasty! When we had toddlers I used to make them something called Popeye Pasta with cheese and spinach - I think it might be time to revisit the idea with this version :)
Looks delicious - Ali x
Hmmmm sounds great but there are two things in this world that Mr P hates - one is pasta and the other is tuna - I can just about get him to eat pasta but think if I added tuna to it he would definitely revolt. I will have to give this a go with smaller quantities on a night when I am just cooking for me. thanks for sharing x
Yummy!!! can't beat a good tuna pasta bake!!must admit not tried it with a cheese based sauce or spinach yet but I'm willing to try it;)
ttfn
Lisa
xx
Like the sound of this, normally I do a tuna spaghetti, with single cream, but may give this one a go for a change :)
That looks delicious Fi, good job I don't live closer or I'd sneak round on the the next Tuna Bake Tuesday, lol!!!
None of my lot eat tuna but I think I'll try this on a smaller scale for just me :-))))
Really looking forward to enjoying a whole month of your fab Blogtoberfest posts xxxx
Looks like a great recipe for my boys, Fi! Thanks for the inspiration.
That looks lovely and if I wasn't on a diet then I'd definitely give it a go :)
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