5g fibreper serving
35g proteinper serving
Cheese & Broccoli Pasta Bake
A drizzle of grassy extra virgin olive oil and a final flurry of Parmesan over the crackling golden crust, still bubbling as it hits the table.
Ingredients
Serves 6- 45 gplain flour
- 400 gbroccoli, cut into small florets
- Fine salt, to taste
- 2garlic cloves, grated
- 650 mlwhole milk, warmed
- 45 gunsalted butter
- 400 gpenne
- 1 tspDijon mustard
- 220 gvegetarian-labelled mature Cheddar, grated, 40 g reserved for topping
- 150 gvegetarian-labelled mozzarella, torn
- ¼ tspground nutmeg
- 50 gpanko breadcrumbs
- 1 tbspolive oil
- 40 gvegetarian Italian-style hard cheese, finely grated
- White pepper, to taste
Method
- Heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan. Cook the penne in salted boiling water for 2 minutes less than its packet time, adding the broccoli for the final 3 minutes. Drain, reserving a mugful of pasta water.
- Melt the butter in the same pan over medium heat. Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes until it smells biscuity and looks like wet sand; this is the roux losing its raw edge.
- Add the grated garlic to the roux and stir for 30 seconds, no more, until fragrant and pale gold.
- Whisk in the warm milk a ladle at a time, letting each addition come together smooth before adding the next. Simmer for 4 minutes, whisking, until the sauce coats the back of a spoon and a finger drawn through leaves a clean line.
- Off the heat, stir through the Dijon, 180 g of the Cheddar, a grating of nutmeg, salt and white pepper. Taste; it should read rich and properly cheesy on its own, because the pasta will dilute it.
- Fold the penne and broccoli through the sauce, loosening with a splash of the reserved pasta water if it tightens; you want it loose, almost too saucy. It firms up in the oven.
- Tip into a deep baking dish, about 30 x 20 x 6 cm, tuck the torn mozzarella through the top in pockets, then scatter the reserved 40 g Cheddar over everything.
- Toss the panko with the olive oil and vegetarian hard cheese until every crumb is coated; dry crumbs burn before they brown. Scatter in an even layer over the bake, then bake for 22–25 minutes until bubbling fiercely at the edges and deep golden on top.
- Rest for 5 minutes so the sauce settles and stops sliding.
Per serving
- kcal
- 715
- protein
- 35g
- fibre
- 4.5g
- carbs
- 68.8g
- fat
- 33.1g
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