Baked Feta Pasta

If you haven’t seen Baked Feta Pasta somewhere online lately, then I’m afraid to say you’ve been living under a rock.

I’m really not one to jump on the food trend bandwagon for the sake of staying current, but when it comes to quick and easy pasta dishes, I’m game. This recipe has gained a ton of traction on social media over the last few weeks, including drumming up a TON of drama around recipe credits and the stealing of IP (which I would love to discuss further in the future).

Baked Feta Pasta was originally called UuniFetaPasta and comes from a Finnish food blogger Jenni Häyrinen, who first shared it in early 2019. If you’d like to do a deep-dive and educate yourself about Baked Pasta Gate you can do so via HuffPost’s “Baked Feta ‘TikTok Pasta’: We Need To Talk About Where It Really Came From” by Jamie Feldman.

This ridiculously easy recipe (and I really mean it when I say easy) takes minutes to prep and doesn’t require any type of slaving over a stove in order to achieve a tasty pasta sauce. Writing that last sentence makes me think about all the other easy pasta dishes I’ve made which deliver the same without minimal effort, but I digress.

I used a harder feta cheese for my version of this recipe, which didn’t turn into a gooey mess like a lot of the other recipes have shown, but I actually really liked the texture. There’s also enough liquid from the tomatoes and olive oil which both help to create the sauce.

If you like chilli, add more. If you don’t like chilli, leave it out (although I err on the side of not loving chilli it seriously elevates the flavour in this dish, so try to stick with it).

The quantities listed below are also good for two, so if you’re feeding a crowd then increase as needed. This is also one of those recipes where I loathe to write out the exact quantities but did anyway because I’m nice like that.

Ingredients

100g block plain feta cheese
200g rosa tomatoes
1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes
1/2 tsp garlic powder
3 tsp dried Italian herbs
olive oil
salt & black pepper
100g uncooked penne pasta
handful fresh basil

Method

Preheat your oven to 180°C
Place the block of feta in the middle of a baking dish and surround with the tomatoes.
Generously drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle over the dried chilli flakes, garlic powder and Italian herbs, then season with salt & black pepper.
Toss the tomatoes gently to combine everything, leaving the feta as is in the middle of the tray (but making sure it’s also seasoned).
Place in the oven for 40 minutes.
5-10 Minutes before the feta and tomatoes are done, cook your pasta (but please make sure it’s al dente!) Drain the pasta and set aside.
Remove the baked feta and tomatoes from the oven, dump the cooked pasta on the top of it and toss to combine everything.
Season to taste, scatter over freshly torn basil and serve!