23 Satisfying Baked Pasta Recipes

This faux lasagna Bolognese delivers all the comforting flavors of the Italian classic, thanks to layers of richly seasoned plant-based meat and a quickly simmered marinara. Cheesy spinach and tender zucchini pack in even more vegetables, which get an extra umami boost from plenty of Parmesan. If you've never cooked with plant-based meat before, trust your instincts and your eyes; it browns as it cooks, just like ground beef.

A hearty meat sauce, lots of melted cheese, and pasta make this dish a crowd-pleaser. Mostaccioli, a smooth, tube-shaped pasta with angled ends, is the go-to here, but penne also works well.

Food & Wine's Justin Chapple amps up the filling in stuffed shells by including ground pork. Use your favorite prepared tomato sauce here.

Instead of using tomato sauce, Hugh Acheson makes his version of baked ziti with intensely sweet roasted tomatoes.

A quick sauté renders baby kale leaves perfectly tender, allowing them to almost melt into the buttermilk-enriched béchamel in chef and cookbook author Alexander Smalls' version of mac and cheese. For a smooth sauce, make sure all of the dairy is at room temperature.

Cannellini beans add hearty creaminess to these stuffed shells, while mild heat from Calabrian chiles and earthy sweetness from fennel seeds amp up jarred marinara sauce. Cook a few extra pasta shells to have on hand in case some tear during boiling.

Jarred piquillo peppers and imported canned tuna from Spain add an Iberian twist to the classic American tuna casserole.

This pasta dish includes Asiago, Fontina, and Parmesan cheese.

Fresh spinach ravioli are a clever shortcut for making lasagna: Each ravioli is already a mini layer of pasta, cheese and vegetable.

Grant Achatz's personal touch to his macaroni and cheese is a tablespoon of paprika (to enhance the color of the sauce) and lots of smoky, crisp bacon bits.

No need to roast fresh pumpkin for this dish (although you certainly could); using canned unseasoned pumpkin puree is much quicker, and it works just fine. Like most lasagnes, this one is easier to cut if left to set for 10 minutes or so before serving.

In Italian cuisine, sugo is a gravy or sauce. Here, chef Ethan Stowell prepares a pork sugo by braising pork shoulder until it almost falls apart, shredding it in a food processor and mixing it with a red-wine-and-tomato sauce. Then, he bakes it with orecchiette under a topping of Parmigiano cheese for a satisfying meal.

F&W's editors tested three different Bolognese-style lasagnas with creamy béchamel sauce before deciding that the definitive lasagna had to have tomato sauce, chunks of meat, shredded mozzarella and creamy ricotta cheese.

Eggplant is sautéed in olive oil until it's creamy soft and then tossed with pasta and cheese. A quick stint under the broiler melts the fontina and browns the top.

Served over pasta, this deconstructed take on Eggplant Parmesan swaps the usual fried eggplant for a sautéed version. Whole-wheat pasta can be used for more fiber.

A splash of red wine vinegar balances the richness of this cheesy pasta and magnifies the pink color of the onions and radicchio. Omit the prosciutto to make this a vegetarian main dish.

For a simple and ultra-creamy baked pasta, take a cue from chef Ashley Christensen of Poole's Diner: Trade the béchamel for this much easier sauce of heavy cream simmered with plenty of nutmeg and two kinds of cheese.

 "A glorious amount of crab meat baked with shell-shaped pasta in a three-cheese cream sauce —tangy white Cheddar, nutty Gruyère, and sharp Parmigiano-Reggiano—is no-joke delicious, and trés riche," Food & Wine Cooks contributor Andrea Slonecker says. "That's where the Champagne comes in. The tingly bubbles give your palate an ultrasonic scrub between each creamy, cheesy, blissful bite."

Crispy panko breadcrumbs add crunch to this rich and cheesy pasta casserole.

Dry pasta and meatballs get baked with mozzarella and marinara in this genius shortcut recipe.

"There is no more comforting food in the world than a bubbly pasta dish straight from the oven," says chef Jonathan Waxman. He replaces the béchamel in this traditional baked pasta with lush eggplant. You can substitute whole-wheat pasta if you'd like.

If you don't want to poach chicken breasts for this version of chicken tetrazzini, you can use three to four cups of meat from a rotisserie chicken instead.

In this lasagna recipe, Andrea Slonecker says "fresh basil brings brightness, sliced mushrooms lend earthiness and toothsome texture, and ricotta delivers the creaminess between the layers."