Vegan Pasta Bake, an Easy And delicious Family Meal (2024)

Made with your favorite vegan sausage, pasta, and sauce…along with a few other ingredients, this Vegan Pasta Bake is pure nostalgia and creamy delicious. It will remind you of the pasta bake casserole of your childhood – only made vegan!

For some other easy vegan remakes on classic family favorites click on the links:

• Salsa Verde Mexican Casserole
• Easy Lentil Shepherd’s Pie
• Tater Tot Breakfast Casserole
• Vegan Devil’s Food Cake
• Cheesy Broccoli Rice Casserole

Does anyone else remember the gooey, saucy, chewy pasta bake of years gone by? You might have called it goulash or Italian casserole. In my family, we called it “goo-flop” – appropriately named by one of our regular babysitters who made a terrible mess when she dumped it on the counter and made a gooey disaster – or “flop”. We didn’t care! We just scooped it up and chowed down.

“Goo-flop”, or classic pasta bake has long been one of my childhood favorites I was eager to recreate and veganize. In the past, I was never really happy with the vegan meat substitutes I used to recreate this dish until I tried Beyond Sausage. It was absolute perfection! Give it a try and I think you will agree.

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What you will need to make this recipe:

• dry pasta of choice – I use a thick tube-like pasta like rigatoni for all of the yummy ingredients to tuck into
• vegan sausage of choice – I like Beyond Sausage (the spicy kind- it really isn’t that spicy though)
• chopped onion of choice – white/yellow/shallot
• light tasting oil for sauteing the onion and cooking the sausage – I like avocado
• pasta sauce – I use bottled sauce but feel free to make your favorite. I’ll list some suggestions below. You will need about five cups which is two 24 ounce jars.
• nutritional yeast (Amazon affiliate link)
• vegan cheese shreds

How to make this quick and easy vegan pasta bake:

It really couldn’t be easier! While you are boiling the water and cooking the pasta, you can prepare the sauce.

Chop the onion and the sausage links. Cook both with a little oil until the sausage is browned the the onion is softened. (If your vegan sausage is precooked then just cut into small pieces and add to the onion after it has softened and begun to brown.)

You will want to sop up any grease in the pan after the sausage and onion have cooked. I use a paper towel for this.

Next, I add the sauce, nutritional yeast, and vegan cheese shreds. Stir around to heat and incorporate all of the ingredients.

By now the pasta should be finished cooking. (You will want to cook your pasta to al dente because it will continue to cook in the oven.) Drain the pasta well and add the sauce to the pasta and stir.

Baking the pasta:

Now, you could stop here – just after you’ve stirred to cooked pasta sauce into the noodles. It will taste fine, but it won’t be an actual pasta bake. And it won’t be quite as delicious. When you bake this pasta dish, all the flavors meld and the texture gets to that slightly softened gooey perfection.

So pour it into a prepared casserole dish and bake away until you hit pasta bake perfection! Please note that you are using vegan cheese and it’s not likely going to melt like dairy cheese would. It’s just a fact. It’s okay.

Can I make my own sauce?

Sure if you are into that! I have found some really yummy jarred sauces though and it sure is a time-saver on a busy night to just pour them in. I have a new favorite, Rao’s Marinara. It tastes pretty darned authentic. You can probably find it at your grocery store. I’ve ordered mine from amazon. (Affiliate link) But keep in mind that you will only need about 5 cups and might have some extra in their larger jars. I’ve never minded because it’s so delicious.

If you would like to make your own sauce, you can try these recipes. Just remember to adjust for the amount you’ll need:

• Homemade Pasta Sauce, Oil-Free (this one’s mine and you will want to double it)
• Quick and Easy Spicy Marinara Sauce from Veggie Inspired (you will need to 1.5x this recipe)
• My Mom’s Pasta Sauce from Rescue Dog Kitchen (this one makes 18 cups so you will need to cut it down significantly or freeze the remainder)

Serving Suggestions:

This recipe makes 6 hearty servings. It works great for meal prep and will keep in the refrigerator for 5-7 days BUT pay attention to the expiration date on the vegan sausage and don’t keep it past that date.

Otherwise…. serve with some crusty bread, a nice crunchy green salad, and a glass of red wine. Sit back and relax and be grateful you didn’t work all day in the kitchen for this one!

The recipe with printable recipe card: