High-protein beef pasta bake with cottage cheese
A creamy baked pasta with over 30 grams of protein a serving, thanks to lean beef and a silky blended cottage cheese sauce.
- 50 min total
- 25 min hands-on
- Follow-a-recipe easy
- Serves 6
- About $2.84 a serving
- 550 calories
- Good the next day
Dolly says: Make the full amount. It’s just as good for lunch the next day.
Ingredients
For 6 servings.
- 12 oz rotini
- 1 lb 90/10 ground beef
- ½ yellow onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 cups baby spinach
- 1½ cups cottage cheese
- 1 jar marinara sauce, divided
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella
- ¼ cup grated parmesan
From your pantry
- 1 tbsp salt
- 2 tsp Italian seasoning
Each serving has about 550 calories, 37 g protein, 58 g carbs and 18 g fat, and costs about $2.84 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No 90/10 ground beef? 85/15 ground beef works.
- No yellow onions? White onions or red onions work.
- No baby spinach? Kale or arugula works.
- No shredded mozzarella? Provolone slices work.
- No grated parmesan? Parmesan wedge works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
the oven to 375°F. Fill a large pot with water, add the salt, and bring it over high.
Preheat. Preheating means turning the oven on before you start, so it’s fully hot when the food goes in. Food that starts in a cold oven cooks unevenly and doesn’t brown the same.
How you’ll know: The oven beeps or its light clicks off, usually 10 to 15 minutes after you turn it on.
Bring to a boil. It means heating a liquid on high until it’s fully boiling before you move on. A lid on the pot gets it there faster, which makes it a good moment to chop something.
How you’ll know: Big bubbles break all over the surface, and they keep coming when you lift the lid.
High heat
Cook the rotini 2 minutes less than the package says, then .
Drain. Draining means pouring off liquid, like tipping pasta into a colander or spooning extra fat out of the pan. Pour hot grease into a can or jar, not the sink, where it hardens and clogs the pipes.
How you’ll know: Only a few drips are left, and the food isn’t sitting in a puddle.
High heat
While the pasta cooks, heat a large over medium-high and cook the beef and onion 7 to 8 minutes, breaking up the beef, until no pink is left.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Medium-high heatTimer: 7 min 30 sec
Food safety: Ground beef, pork and lamb are done at 160°F. When it’s cooked through there’s no pink left anywhere in the pan.
Stir in the garlic and Italian seasoning for 30 seconds, then the spinach, until it .
Wilt. Wilting means cooking leafy greens just until they go soft and collapse. Greens shrink a lot, so a big pile of spinach becomes a small handful, and that’s normal.
How you’ll know: The leaves turn soft and deep green and slump into the pan, usually within a minute or two.
Medium-high heat
Blend the cottage cheese with half the marinara until completely smooth.
Dolly’s tip: Blending turns the curds into a silky pink sauce. Nobody will guess it’s cottage cheese.Stir the blended sauce, the rest of the marinara, the beef and the pasta together, and spread it in a 9x13-inch baking dish.
Top with the mozzarella and parmesan and 20 minutes, until bubbling and in spots.
Bake. Baking means cooking in the oven with dry heat all around the food. It cooks evenly from every side, so you can mostly leave it alone.
How you’ll know: It’s golden on top and passes the recipe’s check, like a clean toothpick or the right temperature.
Golden brown. Golden brown is the color of good toast, somewhere between yellow and light brown. It means the outside is cooked and crisp but not burnt.
How you’ll know: It looks like toast and smells toasty; dark brown with a bitter smell means it went too far.
Timer: 20 min
Let it sit 5 minutes before serving.
Timer: 5 min
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
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