As most of you know, I love to cook savoury meals the most, especially one-pots that use up leftovers and ingredients that I already have. Recently I have cooked quite a few pasta or oven bakes and I’ve really enjoyed them, so I wanted to share my favourites with you. These recipes should all be fairly easy to make & follow and the family should love them!

Mediterranean Tuna Pasta Bake

This recipe is from the second Pinch of Nom book so I can’t take much credit for it, but it is packed full of veggies and tastes great. Healthy, easy and delicious.

Ingredients (serves 4):

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C (Fan 180C/gas mark 6). Heat a large saucepan with some oil in (I use coconut or olive oil) on a medium heat and add the onions, carrots, celery, garlic and fry for a few minutes until softened. Add the stock and simmer for another 5 minutes.
2. Add the courgettes, peppers, tuna, passata and tinned tomatoes to the saucepan. Add the balsamic vinegar, Henderson’s Relish, oregano, basil, paprika, and some salt & pepper to the pan and stir. Cover the pan with a lid and leave to simmer fr approx 6 minutes, whilst you cook the pasta.
3. Cook the pasta in a separate pan of boiling water according to packet instructions, but for half the time (approx 5 – 6 minutes). Once the pasta is part cooked, drain and add to an oven dish. Pour over the contents of the saucepan and mix altogether in the oven dish.
4. Sprinkle the cheddar and feta over the to if the pasta bake and place the oven dish in the oven for 20 minutes. Once golden, this should be ready to served with the chilli flakes and basil sprinkled on top (optional).

Although there are a number of ingredients in this dish if you’re a home-cook/foodie like me you will already have the majority of the ingredients, however I would still recommend to give this dish a go and use up any leftovers for some of my other recipes. If you’re cooking for 1-2, cool the meal within 2 hours of cooking and divide into portions and freeze immediately.

South African Curry Oven Bake – Bobotie

If you haven’t seen my first (and probably not very good) cooking video to give you a taster of this meal, then please check it out here. This South African dish is quite a sweet and spicy curry based dish, that is topped with egg & milk and baked in the oven until golden. One of my favourites!! A very comforting dish that came from a recipe out of the Co-op magazine. Find the full recipe here.

Greek pastitstio

Another absolute fave of mine is the Greek dish Pastitsio. I have cooked a few versions of this, one from a Gousto recipe, and one from the Pinch of Nom book. There were certain differences such as Gousto used lamb mince and required a white sauce made from scratch (a roux sauce of flour, butter and milk whisked till thick), whereas the Pinch of Nom used beef mince and the sauce was a lot easier to make just mixing eggs and yogurt and leaving the oven to do the work of thickening the sauce. I enjoyed both of course. Check out both recipes here.

Naan-topped lamb rogan josh

Another Gousto recipe that was different to how I have cooked curries before, which I thought was a really good idea and was very tasty.

Ingredients (Serves 2):

• 1 Brown Onion
• 1 Tomato
• 1 Garlic Clove
• 15g Fresh Root Ginger
• 10g Coriander
• 1 Tsp Nigella Seeds
• 20g Mango Chutney
• 1/2 Tsp Cayenne Pepper
• 1 Tbsp Garam Masala
• 250g British Lamb Mince
• 2 Plain Naans
• 1 Chicken Stock Cube
• 1 tbsp Tomato Paste

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 220°C/ 200°C (fan)/ 425°F/ Gas 7. Peel and finely slice the brown onions.
2. Heat a dry, wide-based pan (preferably non-stick) over a medium-high heat. Boil a kettle. Once hot, add the sliced onion and lamb mince with a pinch of salt. Cook for 5-7 min or until the onion is starting to soften and the mince has browned
3. Meanwhile, chop the tomatoes into wedges. Peel and finely chop (or grate) the garlic. Peel (scrape the skin off with a teaspoon) and finely chop (or grate) the ginger. Dissolve the chicken stock cube, tomato paste and mango chutney in 400ml boiled water – this is your stock.
4. Once the mince and onions have browned, add the garam masala, cayenne pepper (can’t handle the heat? Go easy!), chopped garlic and ginger and cook for 1-2 min or until fragrant. Once fragrant, add the tomato wedges and stock and give everything a good mix up – this is your lamb rogan josh.
5. Transfer the lamb rogan josh to an oven-proof dish Put the dish in the oven and cook for an initial 10-15 min or until the stock is starting to thicken and the tomatoes have softened
6. While the oven works its magic, roughly tear the naan bread. Pick the coriander leaves from their stalks.
7. Once the tomatoes have softened, top the lamb rogan josh with the naan bread pieces. Drizzle with vegetable oil and sprinkle with the nigella seeds. Return the dish to the oven for a final 10-15 min or until the naan is crisp and golden – this is your naan-topped lamb rogan josh pie. Leave to stand for 5 min before serving. Garnish with the coriander leaves.

Other favourites of mine

More pasta / oven bakes that I have made previously that are worth a mention are;

Spicy Chicken Pasta Bake – this was something really easy to make and just used up the ingredients I had in my cupboard at the start of lockdown. It’s a very popular dish on my website, please give it a try!

Baked Chicken Sausage Risotto – Inspired by Joe Wicks/The Body Coach, this is one of my go to meals to make, and a lot of people I know have tried it and all loved it. Packed with flavour and healthy stuff, and an easy risotto to make (the oven does the work for you) I think you’d love it!

Fish Pie – Really easy, really yummy, and very filling. A fish pie is my guilty pleasure to treat myself to! Give it a go.

There are many, many more recipes I could share with you but these are just my favourite savoury bakes that I cook and nejoy time and time again.

I really hope that I have inspired you to try some of these. If so, please share your comments and photos with me across Facebook and Instagram or email me at jensfoodblog@gmail.com.

Happy munching 🙂

Jen@jensfoodblog

#jensfoodblog

X