Baked feta & tomato pasta

For those of you who have the TIKTOK app you know there’s always a latest craze going on from carrot bacon to pancake cereal. I usually just keep on swiping past all of these but one trend that caught my eye was the baked feta pasta challenge. These 60 second recipe videos were getting millions of views.

It appeared to be pretty easy and let’s face it anything with feta in it has got to be good right!

So I decided to give it a go and boy I was sure glad I did. It’s ridiculously easy to make plus it’s one of those dishes where the sauce is ready just as the pasta has finished cooking so it’s super quick. Perfect to throw together for a busy weeknight or just because. I add capsicum in with the tomatoes just to give extra flavour.

To make this dish, simply place a block of feta in the centre of a baking dish arrange cherry tomatoes around the feta then drizzle with olive oil and a sprinkle of oregano and bake until the tomatoes are bursting and the feta is turning golden. Crush in some garlic and add some fresh basil and stir together all that creamy goodness.

The trick is to add the pasta straight from the pot to the roasting dish that way you get a bit of that starchy cooking water. If it’s not all creamy and glossy add a bit more cooking water and mix through until the pasta is evenly coated in all that goodness.

Hope you enjoy this one as much as I did.

RECIPE

• 250g dried pasta of your choice
• 2 punnets cherry tomatoes
• 1 capsicum trimmed, deseeded and cut into strips
• 200g block feta cheese
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 1tsp dried oregano
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• Small bunch fresh basil, leaves picked, roughly chopped

METHOD

• Preheat oven to 200°C/180°C fan-forced.
• Place feta in centre of a large baking dish. Arrange tomatoes and capsicum around the feta in the baking dish. Drizzle with oil, then sprinkle with oregano and season with salt and pepper.
• Bake for 30 minutes or until feta starts to go golden.
• Meanwhile, cook pasta according to packet instructions.
• Remove from oven. Add crushed garlic and basil leaves. Using a fork, crush feta and tomatoes. Add drained pasta to tray. Toss to combine. Scatter over basil leaves and serve.

You can check out my version on TIKTOK by searching for Mrsfoodiemumma.

For more delicious recipes you can visit my blog www.mrsfoodiemumma.com