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We are starting to head into the prime cooking/baking time for the holidays. With all that kitchen time, you want to make sure that you do what you can to make clean-up a snap.
Using PAM Cooking Spray is a sensible way to help save time in the kitchen. When you use PAM Cooking Spray, you spend less time cleaning up, allowing for more time to be spent with the ones you love. Isn’t this what we all want at this time of year?
PAM Cooking Spray is a great option because it leaves *99% less residue than margarine or bargain-brand cooking sprays, so your dishes will turn out great and you’ll spend less time cleaning up.
With all the planning that goes into putting together the perfect meal, I make sure to have PAM Cooking Spray in my pantry. I used it in preparing this tasty easy company casserole recipe that I am sharing with you all today.
The recipe is similar to lasagna, but is a much easier dish to put together.
This pasta dish is tasty and looks impressive enough to serve company. You have layers of pasta, cheese, and sauce.
I use PAM Cooking Spray to coat the baking dish before I even begin. This will make cleaning the dish after dinner a breeze.
Then, I spray the bottom of the pot I cook the pasta in before I even fill it with water. This helps the pasta to not stick to the pot while it cooks. It also helps the pasta not stick together after it is cooked and drained.
Finally, I give the piece of foil a spray with PAM Cooking Spray before covering the easy company casserole to bake. This help to make sure none of that delicious cheese sticks to the foil after it is completely baked.
Easy Company Casserole
Ingredients
- 1 lb. ground beef
- 1/2 onion diced
- 2–3 cloves minced garlic
- 1 (24-26 oz) jar pasta sauce
- 1 cup light sour cream
- 1 (8 oz) pkg. light cream cheese
- 1 1/2 cup cottage cheese
- 1 (16 oz) pkg rigatoni
- 1 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
- 3 Tbsp fresh minced parsley divided
- 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish with PAM Cooking Spray and set aside.
- In a skillet, cook beef and onion until beef is fully coked. Drain off any excess grease.
- Add the garlic and pasta sauce with the beef. Stir until combined. Set aside.
- Get a pot to cook pasta in, spray with PAM Cooking spray and then fill with water. Then cook rigatoni according to package directions.
- While pasta cooks, combine the sour cream, cream cheese, cottage cheese, 3/4 cup of mozzarella, and 2 Tbsp of parsley together in a bowl.
- Once pasta is fully cooked and drained, it’s time to assemble the dish.
- In your prepared 9 x 13 baking dish layer half of the meat sauce followed by half the pasta and half the cheese mixture. Repeat.
- Then sprinkle with remaining 3/4 cup mozzarella followed by 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese and remaining 1 Tbsp parsley.
- Spray a piece of foil with PAM cooking spray and then cover the dish. Bake covered for 35 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove foil and bake for 10 more minutes. Serves 6-8.
Recipe adapted from 30 Days.
* vs. leading cooking sprays (except olive oil), after spraying on glass bakeware, baking at 400°F for 30 min, cooling, and then washing in standard home dishwasher with detergent and repeating 4 times.
For recipes and cooking tips, follow PAM Cooking Spray on Facebook and Pinterest, or visit pamcookingspray.com.
PAM Cooking Spray sponsored this blog post. The opinions and text are all mine.
3 comments
I make something very similar and freeze it. The trick is to reheat it in the oven and not the microwave (which makes it weird and soggy).
What an awesome idea. I buy ground beef and chicken in 5lb bulk bags and have always divided it up ready to cook and stored in the freezer, but pre-cooking would save so much more time. Have you found that the cooked/reheated meat does or doesn’t absorb your spices as well? That would be my only concern, although I think you could avoid the bland meat scenario by putting some garlic, salt, pepper and some other “general” seasonings (parsley, minced onion) in there when you cook in the crock pot. I would think these are common enough to most things you do with the finished meat that you wouldn’t endanger the final dinner product.
This recipe looks awesome!!! Since I don’t use grain flour, do you think almond or coconut flour would work well as a substitute? Thanks!