‘Honeycomb’ pasta pie

Make this fun and awesome pasta dish for a special dinner. It’s not only look impressive but taste incredible! The star of the dish is the tube shaped tortiglioni pasta— standing upright, clustered together, glued together in the oven with a yummy creamy bacon cheese sauce.

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Prep Time 20

Cook Time 1 20

Total Time 1 40

Course Dinner, Lunch, Side Dish

Cuisine American, Italian

Servings people

Ingredients

4 rashers Farmland streaky bacon chopped finely*
3 cloves garlic finely minced
2 tsp plain flour
1 cup whole milk
1 cup cream
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp Superb Herb rosemary finely chopped
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
300 g Diamond Tortiglioni
Superb Herb thyme

Instructions

Make the sauce: Fry the bacon over medium heat. When brown and fat render out add flour and minced garlic. Stir and cook until the flour is absorbed by the bacon fat. Whisk in milk, cream, herbs and spices and let simmer for 5 minutes or so until thickened.
Mix in the Dijon mustard and 1 cup of cheese. Season with salt if needed. Cover and set aside.
Cook tortiglioni pasta as per packet instructions keeping it slightly under done as it will continue to cook in the oven. Drain. Do not rinse nor add oil.
Preheat oven to 180°C.
To assemble the honeycomb pie: Butter inside of a 20 cm round springform cake tin. Pour about half cup of the creamy cheese sauce and spread to a thin layer over the bottom of the tin. Place the tortiglioni standing up inside the mould until full. Work from the outer round edge towards the middle. Make sure the pasta is level, touching each other and standing on the sauce. Once the cake tin is fully filled with pasta, pour rest of the sauce all over the ‘honeycomb’ structure. Top with remaining cheese and a few sprigs of thyme.
Bake in oven for 40 minutes or until the top is deliciously golden.
Leave to cool for 5-10 minutes in the tin before removing the mould. Serve sprinkled with more thyme.

Notes

* Freezing the bacon rashers slightly makes the chopping much easier.

Keyword kid friendly

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For this dish to work, tortiglioni or rigatoni pasta are the best. The taller the pasta, the better. We find this type of pasta is ideal for thick creamy and cheesy sauces like this pasta bake dish.