Cheesy Baked Tortellini
Updated September 19, 2020
Easy Cheesy Baked Tortellini-this baked pasta dish is easy to make and is always a hit at our dinner table! It also freezes beautifully!
It is officially Fall so we are busting out the comfort food! This Easy Cheesy Baked Tortellini is the ultimate comfort food and one of our favorite meals. We love it for many reasons…it is easy to make, is loaded with cheese, and it freezes well! It is great for weeknight meals or entertaining. It is just good all around! You can’t go wrong with this pasta dish!
This is one of the freezer meals we made before Maxwell was born and it was SO hard to put it in the freezer. We wanted to eat it on the spot! I knew it would come in handy later though, so we refrained. I only shed a few tears as I was putting it into the freezer container.
I am glad we waited because we loved pulling this Easy Cheesy Baked Tortellini out of the freezer when we got home from the hospital. We needed comfort food!
I am sad we already ate the tortellini we stashed away in the freezer, so I am making this pasta dish again this week! The recipe is simple so I am confident I can tackle it with a newborn and toddler running around:)
We love this pasta dish because it is saucy, cheesy, and even has some good for you greens! If I don’t have any of my Easy Marinara Sauce on hand, I like to use DeLallo’s Marinara Sauce. I usually don’t like jarred sauces, but DeLallo’s sauce is the real deal. We love using it when we are feeling lazy and want to keep things simple. DeLallo’s Marinara is so good in this recipe!
The recipe has triple the cheese…cheese tortellini, mozzarella cheese, and Parmesan cheese. We don’t mess around!
Layer all of the ingredients in a 9×13 pan and bake until the cheese is bubbling! Grab a spoon and dig into the cheesy goodness…or you can freeze it for later…or you can take the pan to a friend who just had a baby. Trust me, they will appreciate the meal:) This is the kind of casserole dish everyone will accept with open arms and a smile:)
Easy Cheesy Tortellini Bake, make it for dinner tonight and then add it to your regular dinner rotation. I know you will fall in love after one bite!
And head on over to Gimme Some Oven for another delicious pasta recipe, Chicken Parmesan Baked Ziti! Yay for easy pasta dinners!
Easy Cheesy Baked Tortellini
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 small onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 6 cups fresh spinach leaves
- 3 1/2 cups Marinara Sauce
- 1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- Dash of crushed red pepper flakes
- 2 tablespoons freshly chopped basil
- Salt and black pepper, to taste
- 2 (20 oz packages) refrigerated cheese tortellini
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
- 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese, divided
- Freshly chopped basil, for garnish, if desired
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray. Set aside.
- In a large pan, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook until tender, about 3-4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook and additional two minutes. Stir in the spinach and cook until spinach wilts and shrinks down. Stir in the pasta sauce and diced tomatoes. Add the oregano, dried basil, red pepper flakes, and fresh basil. Stir and season with salt and black pepper, to taste.
- Pour ½ cup of the sauce on the bottom of the baking dish. Add half of the tortellini to the dish and spread out evenly. Top with more sauce, just to cover the tortellini. Sprinkle 1 cup of mozzarella cheese over tortellini and sauce. Next, sprinkle ¼ cup of Parmesan cheese over the mozzarella cheese. Add the rest of the tortellini to the dish in an even layer. Top with remaining sauce. Sprinkle the rest of the mozzarella and Parmesan cheese over the top. Garnish with fresh basil, if desired.
- Spray a sheet of aluminum foil with cooking spray and cover baking dish. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil from pan and bake for an additional 10 minutes, or until cheese is completely melted and bubbly. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?
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Disclosure-this post is in partnership with DeLallo, but our opinions are our own.
For me, the more cheese the better! And the freezer option is a definite plus!
Comfort food perfected. Love it.
I love baked pasta! This looks like a perfect fall food!
This looks exactly like one of my FAVORITE restaurant meals, and I have been dying to make it at home. Thanks for doing all the hard work for me…now I just have to face plant away! Pinned!
Love anything I can freeze! When you’re only cooking for two, love to be able to eat half now and freeze half for later!
Triple the cheese for triple the deliciousness! I love baked pasta dishes like this—truly the ulimate in comfort food.
The spinach floating in the sauce is calling my name 🙂
Classic and delicious! Great dinner!
Yumm!! This is going on our supper menu for next week. Can’t wait!
Love comfort food for the chilly evenings!!
Mmmm…….this looks amazing, Maria! Total comfort food!
I need to stock my freezer with this! We love pasta and this would be amazing to pull out of the freezer for dinner one night!
Tortellini bakes are the best! Perfect comfort food!
Looks so delicious. Thank you.
Baked tortellini with all that sauce and cheese sounds perfect right now! Love the green of the spinach peeking out…
comfort – comfort – comfort !! I adore all of it … this is why fall is actually my favourite season, it’s meant to be cozy 🙂
I love how easy this is and that it can be frozen!
Perfect comfort food – looks so tasty!
I want to try this recipe with delallos marinara sauce but cant find where to buy just one jar. Amazon and walmart sell in six jar pkg. thanks for any help in locating this. I live in illinois.
You can buy the sauce from DeLallo’s website. Here is the link: http://www.delallo.com/products/pomodoro-fresco-marinara-sauce
Happy pomodoro day! 🙂
This looks amazing. And I love that you can freeze it!!
I don’t do pasta bakes nearly often enough and I don’t know why because I LOVE them so much! Great recipe!
Do you have to cook the tortellini before putting it in the dish or is ok to open the package from the fridge and bake it?
I don’t cook the tortellini first. I just add it cold to the pan and layer it with the sauce and cheese. It will cook in the oven!
Looks fabulous!
My kind of comfort food!
Looks delicious!
I love a dish that you can make extra and have it stashed in the freezer for later. This looks like a perfect comfort food dish!
this looks delicious! I love how cheesy it is! 🙂
Looks wonderful. If I’m making it to take to a friend, do I have to bake it or can I deliver to friend pre-baked? Thanks
This reminds me that I need to make more baked pasta dishes! So good!
what about using frozen tortellini?
This looks like a great weeknight meal that will for sure produce leftovers!
Do you bake it before you freeze it, or do you freeze it then bake it? Sounds awesome!!
I baked it and then put it in the freezer. You can reheat it all in the oven or individual portions in the microwave.
Dying over this! There would be NO need to freeze it at I’d eat the whole pan!! Looks so wonderful 🙂
This looks amazing!
This looks so amazing! I need to make this ASAP!
Hi! we had this for dinner this evening.. and it was fabulous. Thank you for another super recipe!! This is my ‘go to’ site for dinner ideas. Please keep it up! Thanks, Sheri
Hi Maria! The tortellini doesn’t need to be cooked first according to package directions? Making this tonight and I’m so excited. Looks so delish!
I just added the ingredients to our shopping list for today. This is the perfect weeknight meal!
What would you think about using dried tortellini? I get it in fairly large bags from TJ’s, but I don’t know what the equivalent is to 3 lbs refrigerated, and I don’t know if it will cook properly…
UH YEAH. This is happening.
I just made this for dinner and it was really tasty and simple to make. I prepared the dish earlier in the day and baked it at dinner time. Next time I make it I will add about 10 minutes to my cooking time as some of the tortellini did not cook completely, probably because it was refrigerated for several hours before baking. I will absolutely make this again for my family. Thank you for the yummy recipe!
I made this recipe the other night and my family LOVED it!!! It really was so easy to make and adjust if needed, definitely a new family favorite 😀
Hi Maria! Love your recipes! I’m wondering if 3 lbs of cheese tortellini is a typo. I buy the Buitoni brand. It would be the equivalent of a little more than two large packages and that seems like a lot. Making a huge batch for freezer meals this week and would love your feedback!
We used that much for a 9×13 pan. It is a full/big pan! If you want to use 2 (20 oz) packages, that should be fine too!
Sounds awesome – WONDERING if I could use frozen tortellini or dried????
…I noticed two other people asked these questions separately – but you did not respond in the feed??
If you don’t know that’s cool – but a response would be helpful!
thanks!!
Yes, you can use frozen or dried. You might want to cook it first…or at least cook it longer in the oven so it cooks all the way through. Enjoy!
What is your favorite refrigerated tortellini brand?
Can I use any brand pasta sauce please
yes!
I made this today and was VERY excited b/c my family loves tortellinis! I thought why pay more for fresh tortillis for a casserole and instead bought frozen and defrosted them….. Whoops! I even made the spaghetti sauce through her recipe but this casserole SUCKED! The tortellinis were tough! It was very sad but 3/4 of this went down the disposable because no one was going to eat any of the leftovers! Don’t know what went wrong but don’t try with frozen tortellinis and expect good results!
As she stated in November (3 months before you tried this) you may need to first cook the tortellini if you are using dried or frozen. I’ve made this with refrigerated, dried, and frozen tortellini and it has been wonderful every time!
Question: Can the same results be achieved with dried,uncooked tortellini instead of ready made refrigerated? Would more liquid be required to reconstitute the dried pasta?
This is an amazing recipe. I used frozen tortellinis. Boiled per package directions. Followed the recipe and they literally melted in our mouths. The kids ate 1/2 the dish.
Do you cook the tortellini first b4 baking?
If you are using refrigerated tortellini you don’t need to cook it first. If you are using dry tortellini or frozen tortellini I would cook it first to be safe.
Hi Maria,
Love all your recipes. Can you use this recipe and instead of tortellini, use ravioli instead?
Thanks,
Jayne
Sure! You might want to cook the ravioli first to make sure it gets done all of the way, since it is larger than the tortellini. Enjoy!
Hi!
Should I take the pasta bake out of the freezer in advance to defrost, or can I just reheat it straight from the freezer? And roughly how long will it take to reheat?
Thanks!
If you freeze it as a full pan, you can defrost first or put it in the oven frozen. It should take about 20-30 minutes to reheat if it is defrosted and 40-45 if it is frozen. I hope that helps! Just watch it, every oven is different. You just want the cheese to be melted and the pasta heated through! Enjoy!
I am NOT talented in the kitchen, but after making your easy black bean dip recipe, I came back to your site to find something to make to take to a potluck – this recipe sounds perfect!!!
Glad you like the dip! I hope you like this one too!
Do u cook tortellini (boil it) before assembling and baking?
Thx in advance
No, you don’t have to cook it.
I’m sad to say, I was a bit disappointed 🙁 The sauce turned out delicious! I was so excited for this dish. Unfortunately, there was not nearly enough sauce for all the (pricey) refrigerated tortellini. At over $5 per bag, it was kind of wasteful. I wish I’d had more marinara on hand to try to fix it up. I’ll definitely make it again (like I said, the sauce was delicious!) but I’ll only use 1 package of tortellini.
I just put this recipe together and found that 2 20 oz. pkgs. of the refrigerator tortellini was far more than needed. I also ran out of the sauce combo. Thankfully I had another jar in the house. Instead of using a 9X13 I used by a giant lasagna pan which worked well. Am thinking it will need a little more baking time. It does smell YUMMY!!
Would love to try this dish. Prefer to use frozen tortellini. My question is should I precook them first.
I never boil them first, they will cook in the oven.
Just made this tonight for my husband! Very good & so easy!! Thank you.
I’m a sucker for pasta dishes, especially when the weather gets cooler. And this one looks so delicious. Can’t wait to make this myself.
Do you need to cook the tortellini first according to pack directions? This looks delicious!
Could you add some cooked ground beef to this?
Sure!
How long do you bake this for if you freeze it ?
So easy to make and a definite keeper. We need to watch salt content, so next time won’t add extra. Yummy.
Hello! this recipe looks so good! Could i add ground beef to this recipe? If so would you add it in the sauce?
Made this last night. Served it with a salad and garlic bread. A huge hit. Definitely will make again. Thank you for a great recipe.
Did you pre-cook the pasta?
Can I use frozen tortellini in this recipe??
Do you cook the tortellini before you put in casserole?
No, you don’t have to!
Did you pre-cook the pasta?
No, you don’t have to!
I noticed that other recipes call for the tortellini to be cooked first but yours does not, is that correct?
I made this for company. The name made it sound as though it would be super cheesy but didn’t really ring true for me. I read all comments ahead of time so I was clued in by one persons comment about it needing more sauce so I uped it by 10 extra oz but to my surprise it was still dry. I am making it again for company but this time I will put a little more cheese and definitely extra sauce. PS. I had made my own sauce And I think that the diced can of tomato business is an unnecessary step, Just use more sauce. I will review it again After making it next week.
I am confused about freezing this dish. Do I freeze before or after baking it? I am making freezer meals for when my daughter has a baby and she already loves this recipe but we’ve never frozen a batch. Thanks!
I like to freezer after baking so it is easy to reheat! Congrats to your daughter. I am sure she will love the meals!
Hello Maria, if I bake and freeze this meal, how long do I need to bake to reheat from frozen?
Can you use meat tortellini?
This was great!! I added chicken sweet Italian sausage from Fresh Thyme.
Easy question- do you freeze it before or after it’s been baked?
Thanks!
Beth
Found the answer about freezing in the comments. Tried to delete first comment, but wasn’t successful.
This was great! I added browned chicken sweet Italian sausage from Fresh Thyme.
I made this dish for dinner tonight and it was a great success. I used spinach and ricotta tortellini instead of just cheese cheese and, as I was only making it for myself and my husband, I halved all the ingredients. There was enough left over to freeze and keep for another night. It was absolutely delicious and a perfect meal for a cold winter’s night (we live in the southern hemisphere and it’s winter here). Thanks for a great recipe.
Linda, Melbourne, Australia