Cheesy Penne Casserole

Cheesy Penne Casserole

Disclaimer: Some of the links below are affiliate links, which means, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you open the link and make a purchase. Read more about affiliate links on our Privacy Policy.

Every time I see a cheesy pasta casserole dish, I always got so jealous of everyone who got to eat it. Those dishes always looked sooooo yummy whenever I saw them. It’s one of the few dishes I saw non-PKUers eat growing up that I wish I could eat (another one was BBQ wings, check out my PKU friendly cauliflower version here).  

This is a dish I’ve been wanting to make PKU friendly for ages, but it was only recently that I made it happen. One reason it took so long was because there have not always been great cheese options for us PKUers. Some of the cheese options we did have, didn’t always melt very well. Once I heard that So Delicious had cheese shreds, I could NOT miss this opportunity to try making a cheesy penne casserole. The two types of cheese I used were the So Delicious Cheddar Jack shreds and their Mozzarella shreds. Another cheese that may work instead of So Delicious might be the Daiya cheese brand, but I have not tried making this casserole with that brand yet. If you give this recipe a try and use Daiya cheese, let me know how it turns out!

Cheesy Penne casserole

Another part of this recipe that needed some adjustment was the mixture that the cheese was added into. Instead of using flour, I used the Cambrooke All Purpose Baking mix, and it worked perfectly! I also had to substitute the milk for this recipe. My go-to milk substitute is Coffeemate original flavor. I have used this since I was a kid, and before that I used Richie Rich’s creamer. I know a big trend is to use coconut milk or almond milk, but I just can’t seem to make the switch. But keeping that in mind, I know that coconut milk and almond milk have a slightly different consistency than Coffeemate, so I’m not sure if that would make the recipe come out a little differently.

Today, now that there are so many more low-protein options for dairy products, it is so much easier to make PKU friendly versions of recipes like this Cheesy Penne Casserole. I did make one other small change to this recipe, but it was more out of personal preference than to accommodate a low protein substitute. I am not a huge fan of cooked tomatoes at all. So the non-PKU version of this recipe (I used this recipe from It Is a Keeper as inspiration) called for diced tomatoes, but I just used some tomato sauce instead. But if you love your tomatoes, feel free to use diced tomatoes instead of tomato sauce.

I was also so excited to try this recipe that I tried some of it before taking a picture of it (whoops!). But that’s what spoons are for right? I don’t regret digging in at all though. This dish was amazing! And I hope that you and your family can enjoy it too!

Ingredients:

2 cups Loprofin Penne

2 tsp. Cambrooke All Purpose Baking Mix

1 cup non-dairy milk/creamer (I use Coffeemate)

1 cup vegetable stock

1 cup So Delicious Cheddar Jack Shreds

1 cup So Delicious Mozzarella Shreds

½ cup Ragu tomato sauce

2 tbsp. butter

3 cloves garlic

1 cup diced onion

1 tsp. Italian seasoning

½ tsp. basil

Servings per recipe: 12

Phe per serving: 35 mg

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cook the penne pasta according to the box directions. Then drain the pasta.

3. Over medium-high heat, melt the butter in a saucepan. Then, add the onion and cook until the onions are clear in color. Add the garlic, Italian seasoning, and basil to the butter and stir.

4. Add the baking mix and whisk constantly for 1 minute.

5. Add the milk and vegetable stock to the pan and bring it to a boil. Add salt and pepper to taste, and remove from heat until the mixture thickens, about 2 minutes.

6. Once cool, add the cheese and stir well. Let that sit for a minute so the cheese can melt into the mixture.

7. As the cheese is melting, transfer the pasta into a greased casserole dish, approximately 9 X 13 inches (I used a 8 X 12 dish, and it was fine).

8. Pour the tomato sauce over the pasta and stir into the pasta.

9. Then add the cheese mixture to the dish and stir well so that the pasta is covered in the cheese mixture.

10. Optional: sprinkle some extra cheese shreds on top of the casserole.

11. Bake the casserole in the oven, uncovered, for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes before serving.

12. Serve and enjoy!