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
This is in the oven RIGHT NOW and while I messed up several times, I expect it will be delicious regardless. (I was trying to make extra sauce to compensate for adding chicken, and ended up actually making less roux than the recipe called for, so it didn’t really get thick. Yet it seemed to look all right when I mixed it all up.) Thanks for posting a fool-proof recipe for fools like me. 🙂
I made this tonight, and it was soo yummy! I opted to leave out the lemon completely, and it was still quite tasty! Thanks for this awesome recipe!
Is it ok to prepare this the night before and bake a day later?
Yeah, that would probably be fine. I’d bake it covered for a bit and you might need to stir half way through.
Oh, how yummy! This recipe was very easy to make. The next time I make it I’m going to make some slight modifications. I happened to really like the flavor but my husband wasn’t crazy about the strong lemon taste(2-Zest to 1-juice)so the next time I’m going to opt for 2-juice to 1-Zest mixture. Also, I’m going to use one extra cup (or more) of spinach next time. We really like spinach so the extra punch of greens will do us good. Highly recommended recipe! Enjoy!!
I made this for a holiday dinner party last month (omitting bacon/sub butter, since we had vegetarians eating it), and it was a huge hit! Thanks for the simple to follow instructions (I never could quite get a roux to work out well, but your directions helped me immensely). This is now a staple in our house!
I made this for dinner tonight and it was a hit! My 15 year old daughter (who is extremely picky) said it tastes like something from a restaurant.
This looks amazing. I am trying to find meals to prepare and put in the freezer before baby arrives. Do you think I could make this and freeze it in a foil casserole dish? Thanks for the recipe!
This dish was awesome! Big hit. I added diced, fresh Roma tomatoes and chicken. Next time will have to make a double batch for family of 6.
And, yes, a good Southern girl knows how to use bacon grease.
Delicious! I will be making this again for sure!
I just made this for dinner tonight and it was awesome! It has my boys’ four favorite foods: pasta, cheese, spinach and bacon! Thanks for this great recipe that is so easy but so full of flavor!
This recipe looks amazing and easy and I’d love to try it! The only problem is, I don’t eat pork. Do you think that it would work with turkey bacon?
Go for it 🙂
Can this meal be made ahead of time and put in the refrigerator? I’d like to make ahead and pop in the oven when company arrives! Thanks, sounds delicious!
Yep! 🙂
I made this for the family, adding small pieces of cooked chicken breast. Everyone loved it. Our only complaint-NO leftovers!
Can’t wait to try this. Thank you for the spinach……always looking for more spinach recipes.
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Made this for dinner tonight! It is SO good!!
I tried making this tonight and as soon as I added the lemon ingredients, it immediately began to curdle my milk. It looked like homemade buttermilk (ie not very pleasant). Any thoughts on what I did wrong?
Made this tonight and I loved it. I did cut back on the lemon, but everything else I left the same. SO GOOD.
I made this tonight and LOVED it! I made it with penne pasta because no one in my family (besides me) likes tortellini. I added some grilled chicken from last night’s dinner. I love that it makes a cream sauce without using cream! Seriously divine! I put two tablespoons of fresh lemon juice in the sauce and I think next time I’ll add more to make it more lemony. Thanks for this and so many other fabulous recipes!
Not sure why this has a “meatless” tag. Bacon is most definitely MEAT!
Lol, we know bacon is meat! We put meatless tags on recipes that are easily adapted to be meatless. In this case, you can obviously just nix the bacon and use butter in the roux 🙂
I made this for my company last week. Everyone loved it! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much for sharing! I made this last night and it was very easy and turned out SO good. I put some chicken in for my carnivorous husband, and it took on the great flavor of the sauce. I have plenty left over for another night this week. YUMMY!
I may have commented on this recipe last year when you first posted it, but I LOVE IT and just made it again and had to tell you about it. 🙂 I hope this one is in the next recipe book!
Hi Sara,
I made this last night and we loved it! I doubled it and froze half in a baking dish. I think it will be good but a little dry – any suggestions for adding moisture when I bake it? Thanks!
Just add a little milk 🙂
Found this recipe on Pinterest…absoulty delicious! I was a bit worried because the pancetta smelled a little weird while cooking (never had it before) but this will defiantly be a regular at our house 🙂 thanks!
I saw this on pinterest and as I type it is baking in the oven! I can’t wait to try it…I made my with ground italian sausage 🙂 I love your blog and have been looking at it daily for ideas.
Thanks!
This is just what I was craving, today. Woke up thinking about a creamy pasta to make for dinner. It was delicious. I thought I had red pepper flakes, but we were out and did not have anything to bring any heat, so I decided to change it up and use a dash of nutmeg. I will also double up the ingredients since I have two grown men living in my house. My boyfriend always enjoys seconds and thirds.