People are always asking us how we come up with recipes, and also what we cook when we don’t really have a plan, or we’re short on time. We’ll be the first to admit that we’re not above drive-throughs, cold cereal, and frozen meals. But sometimes you just want a good, hearty, home-cooked meal. This is a great example of a really good dinner, that was created by simple ingredients I already had around my kitchen. I’ve said over and over that the trick to being able to whip up quick, yet delicious meals in a pinch is keeping a well-stocked pantry. One of the things I always have around is dried pasta, in all shapes and sizes. I love quick cooking tortellini that can be a great base to so many quick dinners- and there’s something fun about little pouches of cheese! I also almost always have a giant package of fresh spinach from Costco in my fridge, and it’s so cheap that I don’t hesitate buying it in such large quantities. After a week or so I’m always looking for ways to use it up quick before it goes bad.
This is an awesome little pasta bake and the great thing is that it looks fancy and tastes decadent, but it’s super simple to throw together (shhh…no one has to know!) And although it’s rich and creamy and cheesy, it’s also fairly healthy. I love dinners that I can throw together during my baby’s nap-time and pop in the fridge to have ready at dinner time when things get crazy.
Let’s cook.
Obviously you’ll need tortellini! You can find dried tortellini in the regular pasta aisle- a great thing to have in your pantry.
You don’t need to have any jarred sauce on hand for this dish- the sauce is SO good and you’ll be amazed how quick and easy it is. Start by cooking up a few strips of bacon (or pancetta would be great too) until crisp. It only takes a little bit for good flavor throughout the dish.
After you take the bacon out of the pan, you’re going to make a simple roux– but instead of butter, we’ll take advantage of the fat we’ve already got right there in the pan! You’ll just use a little bit, and discard the rest of the grease. I usually just take a wad of paper towels and soak it right up and toss it in the trash. (Or save it in a jar if you’re a save-the-bacon-grease type of person)
In the little bit of bacon grease in the pan, toss in some minced garlic. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again- the smell of fresh garlic sauteing in bacon drippings is one of the most intoxicating smells in the world. Glade needs to market that one. Add a little flour and a little milk (non-fat is fine) and you’ve got yourself a base to a nice creamy sauce.
We’ll flavor it up with salt and pepper of course, a little basil, and then some fresh lemon zest, lemon juice, and some red pepper flakes. The lemon is so bright and so fresh, it adds the perfect flavor to this creamy, savory dish. And with the red pepper flakes, you can add just a little, for flavor and no heat- or a lot, for flavor and a nice kick. Up to you. It’s like a choose your own adventure book (remember those??) I added 1/4 teaspoon and it wasn’t spicy at all. Really. I promise.
By now those tortellini are done cooking (they only take about 10 minutes) so drain those and then place them back in the pot they came out of.
When our recipes call for “loosely packed spinach” this is what we mean. Just set the spinach in the measuring cup gently and don’t pack it down.
And when we say “roughly chopped” it just looks like this- no need to be meticulous, just run a knife through it real quick.
The tortellini is back in the pot and now we’ll toss in the spinach and the bacon (I reserve about 1 tablespoon of the bacon to put on top at the end)
We’ll also add a little cheese, both Parmesan and Mozarella, for flavor and creamy-melty-cheesy-goodness. If you wanted to bulk up the meal and add some protein, some chopped grilled chicken would be fantastic ion there too!
Stir in the sauce and pop it all in a baking dish with a little more cheese and bacon on top. At this point it can be covered in foil and go in the fridge for later, or right into the oven.
It bakes up in 20-30 minutes, and while it’s in the hot oven the flavors have a party and come out tasting even better than when they started. Amazing how that happens!
Serve it as a one dish dinner with a piece of crusty french bread on the side, or as a side to chicken or steak. Makes a great addition to a pot-luck too. With the fun tortellini and the yummy cheesy sauce, my kids said NOTHING about the fact that there was spinach in there. Plus one for team Mom!
Tortellini Spinach Bake in Creamy Lemon Sauce
Recipe by Our Best Bites
12 oz bag Barilla Cheese & Spinach Tortelini (find them in the dry pasta aisle)
4 oz bacon or pancetta, (about 4 strips bacon)*
3 cloves garlic, pressed in garlic press or finely minced
2 Tbs flour
2 C milk
¾ tsp kosher salt
⅛ tsp black pepper
1 1/2 tsp dry basil
¼ tsp red pepper flakes (1/2 tsp or more if you like spicy)
1 medium lemon
2 C loosely packed fresh spinach, roughly chopped
¾ C grated mozzarella cheese, divided
¾ C grated Parmesan cheese, divided
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Fill a large stock pot with water and bring to a boil. Add tortellini and cook according to package instructions.
Place bacon in a medium sized skillet on the stove-top at medium-high heat. Cook until crisp. Remove bacon from pan with slotted spoon and set on paper towels to drain. Reserve two tablespoons bacon drippings in pan and discard the rest. Add garlic to pan and cook until fragrant and tender, about 1 minute. Add flour to pan and stir with a whisk for about 1 minute. Slowly add milk and continue to stir with whisk until smooth. Add salt, pepper, basil, and red pepper flakes and bring sauce to a simmer.
While sauce is heating, use a microplane grater or a fine-holed cheese grater to zest lemon. Then cut lemon in half and remove juice. Add 2 teaspoons zest and 1 tablespoon lemon juice to sauce. (Note: I really love lemon so I added this to my tastes. If you don’t want as strong of a lemon flavor, I suggest cutting it down to 1 teaspoon zest and 2 teaspoons lemon juice) . Continue to stir until thickened, 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat.
Drain tortellini and place back in stock pot. Reserve 1 tablespoon of the cooked bacon and add the rest to the pasta mixture. Add spinach, 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese and 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese. Add sauce and gently stir to combine. Place pasta mixture in an 8×8 or 9×9 baking dish and top with remaining 1/4 cup mozarella and 1/4 cup parmesan and also crumbled bacon.
Cover pan with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes, until cheese on top is melted and pasta is bubbly throughout. Remove from oven and cool for 10 minutes before serving.
* For a vegetarian meal, omit bacon.
Serves 4-6
Questions & Reviews
Made this and LOVED it! Thanks for sharing!
Made this the other night for my family…along with the Hot Crab Dip posted by this website…and both were amazing. My 2 year old loved the pasta and so did my husband who will rarely eat anything with spinach in it!! I felt like I was eating at some great italian resturaunt! We added chicken to ours to make it an all around meal…and it was fabulous!!!
Just made a veg version of this (minus the spinach, sis doesn’t like it!) But it was super still delicious! Also left out the red pepper flakes and added oregano, and used refrigerated cheese tortellini. It didn’t taste anything like I expected it to when I read the recipe, but it was great!! Served it with a salad and garlic bread for a yummy and quick meal. Thanks for this 🙂
Yum. I didn’t have bacon, so I left that out and added cherry tomatoes and mushrooms. Can’t wait for my leftovers at lunch tomorrow!
I made this for dinner tonight…I loved it! The dish had such interesting flavor between the bacon, cheese, red pepper, and lemon all mixed together. It was really good.
Hi there! I am looking for meal that I can prep and pop into the oven the next evening. Do you think that this would keep before baking for 24 hours? Thanks so much! It looks amazing!
I’ve never done it that far in advance, but I think it would work just fine!
Delicious! I’ll be sharing this one with everyone. Thanks for a great recipe!
I made this for my book club tonight and got rave reviews! This is a keeper!
One great thing about having these ingredients is you can add a few and have a great veggie quiche reducing chance of waste
This recipe was wonderful.
um holy cow. That was amazing. I just stuffed my gullet with this awesome meal and want to keep snacking out of the pan. Pretty sure I’ll have it for breakfast too. ps, I cooked it 20 min at 400, no foil and it was perfectly browned and bubbly.
Delicious. I added a tomato for color and since I need to use them up. Thanks!
I made this with my mom and the whole family loved it, except for my lil’ bro, but he doesn’t count, he doesn’t like anything. I used pancetta which was a really yum substitute for bacon
I made this tonight after my BFF gave it rave reviews. It was great! My family really enjoyed it. I left out the lemon (because I was frazzled and forgot it!) and added in some cooked chicken. My husband said it was awesome and that he’d pay money to eat that. My non-veggie eater asked for seconds. The other kids enjoyed it as well. It’s a keeper for us!! Thank you! 🙂
I made this last night and it was phenomenal!! Both my boyfriend and I went back for seconds, and I have it for lunch again today…. extremely tasty! I can’t recommend it enough 🙂
I saw this recipe on Pinterest, and made it tonight. It was every bit as delicious as I thought it would be! Even my “meat ‘n potatoes” husband LOVED it! Thanks for a great recipe that I’ll definitely be making again and again!
Oh em gee. I just made this. It is my new FAVORITE recipe. It was way better than any restaurant food I have ever had. It was so delicious and flavorful. I used colored tortellinis and it made the dish looks so festive. I loved it. Thank you!
This is the first thing I have ever made from y’all…and it was so YUMMY! I took leftovers to lunch the first week back at school and the next day was copying the recipe for everyone. 🙂
I was super excited when I first clicked on this dish after seeing it in the Vegetarian section of your website, but was a little bummed to see that it wasn’t completely veggie friendly. Personally, I love bacon but my roommate is a lifelong Vegetarian. I really want to try this recipe so he can enjoy it too our apartment cooking nights, but I’m wondering if it will be too lemon-y and tart without the smokey flavors of the meat. Any suggestions on how to modify this recipe? Thanks!
P.S: I love this site so much! I’m a college student on my own for the first time and this site has been invaluable. I can look in the same place to find new, interesting recipes while learning the basics at the same time. Perfect for a girl who is just starting to cook for herself. The Tutorials section has saved my life, no joke.
Anna, we include recipes in our vegetarian section that are either vegetarian, *or* easily adapted to be. You can certainly leave out the bacon and use a traditional roux (with butter) for the sauce. Enjoy!
I made a veg version of it using butter instead of bacon grease, and it was still wonderful! I just added some oregano, and it was not too lemony or tart!
Anna – Have you tried the fake bacon that Morningstar Farms makes? It’s usually sold in the freezer section. I’ve used it a few times and found that it has a smokey flavor (although not as much as real bacon) but that it makes a nice substitute sometimes. Maybe try that for your roommate 🙂
Okay, I’m going to try this for dinner tonight, sans bacon though, since I’m newly, reluctantly, vegetarian. But, I’ve got everything else. Yay!
My husband ranked this in the top five things I have ever made!!!! I will definitely be making this again. Thanks! 🙂
I love this recipe! I have made it 3 times in the last month. Thanks!
wonderful recipe!!! I made this with 1/2 a box of frozen chopped spinach, turkey bacon and as recommended less lemon. It was fabulous and will be a regular in my house. Oh, and I paired this with some baked chicken drumsticks…yummo!
I think pesto would taste great. I often squeeze lemon in my pesto so it would go together nicely!
I am making this for dinner and it smells delish! I was wondering what you thought about adding pesto to the recipe? I might try it next time but I wasn’t sure if it would take away from the lemon taste too much. What do you think?
Made this be sure to cool your pan after frying your bacon for about 3 minutes to not burn garlic. I added some chicken doubled the cheese and added a little extra garlic. A friend commented that this was better then any resturant- Could open a catering business with this dish alone. Oh couldnt find the pasta so just used 3 cheeses and upped the amount of spinach by a cup. THANK YOU for the AWESOME recipe.
Definitely going to try this!
As a side note, I save my bacon grease in a jar that goes into the FRIDGE. No way would I ever just leave it out, even in a dark cupboard. I know people who do this and think they’re nuts. It goes rancid like any other grease/oil. (I’ve had one woman tell me it was impossible for this to happen – uh, why?) In the fridge, it firms up into an easy to scoop/measure solid and stays fresh for a long time. I toss a tablespoon into a skillet to fry up veggies, add it to potatoes, roast asparagus with it, etc. regularly!
I also couldn’t find the baged dried stuff – so I went with the fresh but I also have a large family (6 kids and expecting) so I used two packs of tortellini but didn’t think to double the sauce – OPPS! But then I cooked it in a 9×13 and it stuck a little to the bottom, but it was still good and with some tweeking I will make it again. Hubby came out and saw me using my zester for the first time (honestly the first time I had ever used it in 15 years!) and said it was sexy! Thanks for another great recipe – can’t wait to see what you all will have me making for dinner tomorrow night? LOL
Sexy zester! haha, I LOVE that!
Like all of your other recipes, this was fantastic. My boyfriend kept hinting that he would be requesting this one again and again. I added chicken, as suggested, and it really is a winner of a recipe. Thanks!
Oh my I am so excited to make this tonight! It’s awful because I seriously flip through your recipes all day at work and then I pick up whatever I need on the way home to make it for dinner. My husband doesn’t complain but my pants sure are starting to! I have loved EVERYTHING I’ve made from your blogs! My entire family is hooked!