Courgette, bacon and chilli pasta bake recipe

This courgette, bacon and chilli pasta bake is the perfect comfort food for days when you need a good pep. 

This is a really great family dish - healthy, tasty and easy to make. It's cheap too - one of our brilliant cheap family meals. Using wholemeal pasta makes it much healthier than white pasta because of the fibre content. We love the extra spiciness of the chilli in this dish - if you want to ramp it up a bit more, feel free to add a bit more. Serve with a nice green salad to get another one of your five-a-day portions of fruit and veg, too. 

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp of olive oil
• 2 rashers of smoked bacon
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 white onion
• 2 mild red chillies
• 2 courgettes
• 1 red pepper
• 1 tbsp of chopped basil
• 300g of Wholemeal pasta
• 1 small tub low-fat crème fraîche
• 1 slice of toasted brown bread
• 50g of grated cheddar cheese

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 190°C/375°F/Fan 170°C/Gas Mark 8.
2. Chop the bacon into nice bite size chunks and fry in a frying pan along with the olive oil.
3. While the bacon fries, peel and finely chop the garlic, onion and chilli. Chop the courgettes and red pepper.
4. Boil a kettle of water and add the freshly boiled water to a saucepan and add the pasta. The pasta needs to be just cooked, which dependent on the brand of pasta, should take about 10 minutes.
5. Once the bacon is crispy, add the contents of the frying pan to an oven proof dish along with all the chopped vegetables.
6. Drain your pasta and add to the ovenproof dish along with the crème fraîche. Give the ingredients a good mix and add the chopped basil. Now put the dish in the over for 10 minutes.
7. While your dish is bubbling away in the oven, toast your bread and allow to cool.
8. Place your cooled toast in a food processer and add the grated cheese. Blitz the mixture to a fine breadcrumb.
9. After the dish has been in the over for 10 minutes, take the dish out and spread the bread crumbs over the top of the casserole and return to the oven for a further 5-10 minutes or until the breadcrumbs are a golden brown.

Top tip for making courgette, bacon and chilli pasta bake

Try replacing the cheddar with 50g of a blue cheese to add more depth and richness to the flavour of the dish.