Tuna Pasta Bake
This casserole is creamy and indulgent with a luscious white cheese sauce and chunks of Tuna. Look beyond your regular Canned Tuna Salad and make this comforting Tuna Pasta Bake when its cold outside. It is all made from scratch without any use of canned soup or mixes.
There is something comforting about casseroles, especially when it is cold outside. Digging into a warm cheesy casserole is such a pleasure. This Tuna pasta bake is as delicious as this vegetable pasta bake and Baked Italian Sausage Pasta. There is a good ratio of tuna and pasta. Seasoning of garlic powder, onion powder, and mustard powder sort of masks the tuna flavor, so if you are someone who is not a fan of Tuna can also enjoy this.
A couple of cans of tuna, pasta, and a basic white sauce is transformed into a casserole in less than 1 hour. This like any other casserole is quite versatile. You can throw in your favorite veggie to make it more filling. This is unapologetically loaded with cream and cheese, yet something you would love to indulge in.
What you need
- Canned Tuna – Good quality canned Tuna. Tuna in Oil is more flavorful and many recipes use it. But because butter, cheese, and heavy cream are already in the sauce, I have used Tuna in water to make it a little lighter.
- Pasta– Any sort of pasta such as penne, fusilli, or small shell will work.
- To make Roux – Butter, flour, and milk for the base of white sauce.
- Heavy Cream – If you wish a lighter version, substitute with half and half or light cream.
- Seasoning – Garlic powder, Italian Seasoning, onion powder and ground mustard
- Shredded Cheese– I have used a mix of cheddar and mozzarella.
Variations
- Add Vegetable – Sweet corn is a popular addition. I have not added it because no one loves corn at home except me. You can also add some sauteed mushrooms to it.
- Not a fan of Tuna? Use salmon instead, like sometimes I use canned tuna in this Creamy Lemon Salmon Pasta.
- You can also use some parmesan cheese in the sauce.
How to Make Tuna Pasta Bake
Broadly we can divide the process of making into three steps. Cook pasta and sauce, assemble, and bake.
Start with cooking the pasta. Generously salt the water. Cook the pasta just ‘al dente’ since they will continue to cook in the oven and you want to avoid mushy pasta.
While the pasta is getting cooked, make the white sauce. White sauce is very basic, it has butter, flour, milk, and seasoning. Garlic powder, onion powder, herb seasoning, and yellow mustard powder. Mustard powder pairs well with seafood and I would recommend no to be skipped in this recipe.
When the sauce and pasta are done, it is time to assemble the pasta bake. Toss together the sauce, pasta, and tuna. If you are planning to add veggies like peas, corn, chopped carrots, etc. add now. If adding Mushroom, saute it separately and add to the sauce.
Put pasta mixture in a casserole dish, top with more cheese, and bake until the top is golden and cheesy is bubbly.
Freezing and Storing Suggestion
Storing any leftover Tuna Pasta Bake is easy. You can refrigerate the leftovers in an airtight container for up to 3 days. While reheating, add a little warm stock as it might have dried up a bit.
To freeze, let it cool down completely, tightly cover the casserole dish with foil, and freeze. Let it thaw completely before reheating.
Recipes using Canned Tuna
More Canned Tuna Recipes…
Baked Tuna Pasta
Ingredients
- 1 lb Fusili Pasta
- 2 6 ounce can water-packed tuna
- 4 tablespoon Butter
- 3 tablespoon All-purpose Flour
- 3 cups milk
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 2 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
- ½ teaspoon ground yellow mustard
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 cup Shredded Cheese ( ref note 1)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Boil water in a big pot, season generously with salt. Cook pasta as per package instructions. Pasta should be cooked just 'al dente'. Reserve 1 cup of cooked pasta water for later use.
- While the pasta is cooked, melt butter in another in a large skillet/pot.
- Stir in flour. Let it bubble on low heat for about 30-40 seconds. The raw smell of the flour should be gone but make sure the flour doesn't get brown.
- Slowly add half of the milk to the skillet while stirring the mixture continuosly with the other hand.
- The mixture will start to thicken quickly. Then slowly add the rest of the milk and keep stirring to avoid any lumps.
- Reduce the heat. Add half and half, 1 cup mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, yellow mustard powder, herb seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder , salt and pepper. Mix everything well.
- Drain tuna well and break any big chunk to medium sized pieces. Add it to above sauce along with cooked pasta.
- After mixing if it looks too thick, then add about 1/2 cup pasta water saved to the skillet to get a creamy consistency.
- Spray a 9X13 casserole dish with non stick spray. Pour in the pasta mixture to the dish.
- Bake casserole for 25 to 30 minutes, uncovered, or until heated through and the edges start to set.
Notes
- I have used 1 cup cheddar and 1 cup mozzarella. You can also use 2 cups mozzarella.
Nutrition
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The roux was a success using the saute setting on my instant pot. I added celery, carrots, mushrooms and onions to the mixture. The instructions were not exactly succinct. The ingredients call for heavy cream but the instructions did not mention when to add. The instructions say to add parmesean but the ingredients do not have parmesean listed. The 2 teaspoons of Italian seasoning definately overpowered the dish. My kids (2 and 4) reluctantly ate it but they did so its a winner in my book. Just needs some slight tweaks.
To clarify, the veggies were first sauted.