Cheesy mushroom mixed pasta casserole with fresh spinach is the best use for all those half boxes of short pasta. Baked together in a cheesy sauce until the edges get crispy. The perfect once a month meal to clean out that pantry pasta supply.

Holy schnikes, that’s a mouthful of a recipe title. I even shortened it and still left out poor spinach. Gotta make it search engine friendly these days.

Sigh. All the things that go on behind the scenes would blow your mind. And probably bore you to death.

January is over. Hallelujah. We survived. It probably means most of you have finished with your Marie Kondo-ing tidying up. When we were on lockdown last week due to cold and snow, I did a little bit of tidying up. I didn’t do the full blown, “hold this in your hand, does it spark you joy” mumbo-jumbo. I find it hard to do that with two tiny tornados following you around telling you, “You can’t get rid of that!” because they love it.

My pantry was of no interest to the boys, so I hit that hard. Do you know how many half or even less than half-used boxes of pasta I had?

Five! Every single box of pasta in my pantry was half gone. Does anybody else have this problem?

Want to know the solution for this pasta problemo? You guessed it! Cheesy mushroom mixed pasta casserole. 

You can take any leftover short pasta odds and ends and throw them into this dish. The different shapes make the dish interesting and hold the max amount of cheesy sauce.

All the different shapes have different cook times but tossing them in the cheesy sauce and then baking them leads to ultimately tender pasta. I also crisp up the mushrooms and mix together the cheese sauce while the pasta boils. Get those burners going and get your stovetop cooking all done at once to save time.

I could even see this dish as a good spring clean-out-the-pantry dish too! Instead of spinach, you could toss in some peas and asparagus! Yum! If after every time I cleaned I got to eat cheesy pasta, maybe I would clean more often, eh?

Cheesy Mushroom Mixed Pasta Casserole

Yield: serves 6

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 50 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

All different small shapes of pasta baked together with crispy mushrooms and spinach in an easy cheesy sauce.

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Ingredients

• 1 pound mixed short pasta shapes such as macaroni, fusilli, farfalle, penne, and orzo
• 6oz baby bella mushrooms, wiped clean and sliced
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3 cups milk
• 4oz shredded gouda cheese
• 2 oz shredded mozzarella
• 2 oz grated parmesan
• 2 cups fresh spinach leaves
• salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Drop mixed pasta into the water and boil for 10 minutes, until just about al dente. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease a 9x11-inch baking dish with oil or butter and set off to the side.
2. While the pasta cooks, melt 2 tbsp butter in a medium/large skillet over medium heat. Once the butter has melted, add the sliced mushrooms and cook for 10-15 minutes until golden and crisp.
3. In a separate medium pot, melt the remaining 4 tbsp unsalted butter over a medium/low heat. Once melted, whisk in the flour. Cook for 1 minute. Slowly add the milk, keep whisking. Increase the heat to medium. Whisk until the sauce, slightly thickens, about 5 minutes. Mix in the 3/4 of the cheeses (reserve some for topping), along with salt and pepper to taste. Once the cheese melts, turn off the heat.
4. Drain the pasta in a colander placed in the sink. Mix the drained pasta into the cheese sauce. add the mushrooms and spinach. Mix to combine until the spinach slightly wilts, about 2 minutes.
5. Transfer the cheesy pasta to the baking dish. Top with remaining cheese. Bake for 35 minutes until golden brown on the edges. Let cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.