Of all the mushrooms that are available, portobello mushroom is my favourite. I love its meatiness (actually more on the beefy side to be exact) and the profound earthy flavour that is good enough to be eaten on its own (saute in butter, oregano, salt and pepper of course).
Since I have the appetite of a horse (those who know me will call this an understatement :P), it’s going to take a lot of portobellos to satisfy me. So I thought of volumising my meal by adding them into spaghetti. Yes, solo portobello and nothing else! But like any bake pasta, crusty melted cheese layer is a must! I mean who can resist the temptation of bubbling hot cheesy goodness right?
{Normally I will do without the white sauce. But then, I’ve realised that the milk was nearing the expiration date. So why not used it all up in a buttery white sauce, right?}
Portobello Mushrooms Spaghetti Bake
Serves 2 – 3 people
Ingredients:
500g spaghetti
375g portobello mushrooms, sliced
575g pasta sauce
30g butter
1 tsp dried oregano
shredded cheese (I’ve used a mixture of mozarella, parmesan and cheddar)
Sugar, salt & pepper
For white sauce:
50g butter
1 tbsp plain flour
1 cup milk
Method:
1. Preheat the oven with the top heat setting on 200 degrees celsius/392 degrees fahrenheit.
2. Cook pasta according to pack instructions. Drained and drizzle some olive oil to avoid the spaghetti sticking together. Set aside.
3. Melt butter and dried oregano in a pot with a little drizzle of olive oil (to prevent the butter from getting burnt). Once the oregano becomes aromatic, add sliced mushrooms and try to get all the mushrooms coated with the butter.
4. Allow the mushrooms cook until their moisture starts to ooze out. Add pasta sauce and let it simmer on medium to low heat while you start making the white sauce. If you skip the white sauce, let the pasta sauce mixture simmer for 10 – 15 minutes. Then, add pepper, sugar and salt to taste.
5. White sauce making – On a pan, melt the butter with a little olive oil. When the butter is melted, add flour and make sure it is well combined with the butter. Add milk and simmer until the sauce is thicken to your preferred consistency. Set aside.
6. Toss spaghetti into the pasta sauce and mix well. Layer it out on a baking dish.
7. Top the spaghetti mixture with white sauce and sprinkle some shredded cheese on the very top.
8. Bake for 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted.
IMPORTANT: Kim from The Ramdom Ramblings of a Working Mum has alerted me about the downside of using foil trays with tomato based food (read her comment below). So please don’t follow my bad practice. Obviously at the end of the day, health trumps dirty dishes. 🙂
I love pasta and I love mushrooms, oh and I love cheese 🙂
Great recipe, I don’t often make pasta bake, I think it’s time to make one.
Hi Magda,
Pasta, mushrooms and cheese – check, check and check to my fav ingredients. That also means I love pasta bake, possibly because of that layer of melted cheese. uhmmmm…melted cheese….
Oh, it looks fantastic! I always keep a stash of foil trays for delivering food to sick friends. I seem to have a lot of them these days–maybe they’re faking to get a home-cooked meal! I’ll add this to my delivery list!
Hi Sommer,
Haha, I like the sentence “faking to get a home-cooked meal”.
On the contrary, I keep a stash of foil trays for any roasting and grilling work, it’s just too hard to scrub off the caramlised bits off the baking dishes. 🙂
Oh Emily, I don’t let that foil tray fool me as they look too good to be a pre-made frozen food! I like portabello too and this is just perfect to fix a craving. Gorgeous photos! I also agree that yes crispy cheese layer is a must! 😀
On another note, no I didn’t change the camera. It might be because I got better with picture angles? Natural light in summber does help a lot too. Thanks anyway Em!
Hi Tanantha,
Thanks for your kinds words. Somehow when I look at the photos, I was reminded of frozen food…hehe (maybe due to the lack of plating). Anyway,thank goodness you don’t think it looks one. 😀
I was mesmerized with your recent photos as the colors were so crips and something about them that makes me say “wow”. So I thought you may have upgraded your camera. My bet.
OMG. This recipe looks amazing! Did you make it up or is it from something? I must make this soon. My husband will love it also.
SPeaking of portobellos — I wanted to thank you again so much for your support last month with the Cooking Light contest. I won!! I really appreciate all your support. thanks again. 🙂
Hi Melissa,
Yes, I make this recipe up. 😛
re Contest – it’s my pleasure, too bad I could not vote but I’m glad that you’ve won. It was a really good recipe. 🙂
I will def be making this :)!
Hi Danielle,
You won’t regret this! 😉
I am getting hungry from your post! I love all the ingredients!
Hi Adelina,
Thanks for your lovely words. It’s quite an easy and not to mention tasty pasta bake. 🙂
Portobello mushrooms, pasta, white sauce and cheese are a heavenly combination indeed. Just my idea of delicious comfort food 🙂
Hi Bistro Gerard,
That’s right. Bake cheesy pasta is at the top of my comfort food list. 😀
I love baked pasta and it’s much quicker than making lasagne! Totally agree on washing fewer dishes too…above all if you don’t have a dishwasher, like myself 🙁
Hi Sara,
I find lasagne is a bit tricky in which I don’t really mind getting from outside. 😛
I know right? I never consider the importance of dishwasher until I live on my own thinking that since my parents never needed one and so am I. Wrong. Anyway it’s now on my wishlist, but until then husbands make good dishwashers too, lol. Oh juz kidding!
This is so naughty that I could have all of it. Love baked pasta.
Hi Penny,
haha, be careful of having all by yourself, you probably gotta run miles and miles just to burn it off. 😛
I’ve never had portobello mushrooms before, surprisingly. My husband has been bugging me to try one, and I think this meal is the perfect one to start with! Thanks for sharing 🙂
That’s strange because my husband is trying to talk me out of using portobello mushrooms in the pasta, he prefers bolognese (all meat galore) instead.
Hence the layer of melted cheese is to distract him from the mushrooms, haha.
Thanks for dropping by. 😀
That looks SO yoummy.
But a word of caution – you should not put anything tomato based in tin foil pans or wrap with tinfoil for that matter. The acid in the tomato actually breaks down the tinfoil so that it becomes part of your food – makes you wonder why so many store bought tomato foods are in tinfoil doesn’Tt it?
You,re better off using glass pans. You can even line your pan with parchment paper, cook the dish, cool and then freeze the dish in the pan – once frozen, remove the food fromt he pan using the parchment and wrap or put into ziplock bags so that your pan is always available.
Once you want to cook the dish, simply take it out of the freezer, place in the appropriate dish, thaw and cook.
Hi Kim,
Thanks for your warning, I definitely don’t want aluminium in my food.
I’ll try your idea next time. Your recommendation is very much appreciated! 🙂
Easy and delicious. Lovely photos! I can see this being a hit with families and also a good one to send to a friend who just moved, had a baby etc.
That looks so so good! I LOVE mushrooms. I recently made this portobello mushroom tower and it was so yummy!
i had a go at this and i found it very nice,i made enough to feed 25 hungry card players,on using the foil baking dish i have never tasted aluminium in any of my dishes.
Looks yummy!! Do you have a printer friendly version?