I have a love hate thing with Hawaiian Pizza. Em and Norah love it, so I eat it regularly but it is not my favorite combo. On the other hand it is pizza so it is better then most foods. When faced with a large amount of ham leftovers I had a brainstorm. Hawaiian Pizza but in a pasta bake. If dinner has noodles in it, then I also have a 60% greater chance of Spencer eating it. Another win-win.
The other awesome thing about using leftover ham from Baked Ham is that it makes enough for two dinners. At the very least dinner and a handful of lunches – so I am up to 3 meals from my ham and I still have the ham bone soup to make.
I start the casserole by dicing up a couple cups of leftover ham and a couple cups fresh pineapple. I always have fresh pineapple because it is my favorite thing to juice ( see breakfast juice).
Also going into casserole is 1 lb cooked pasta. I used Mostacciolli. In addition to that I will use 2 cups shredded mozzarella, 1 quart of our homemade tomato sauce, 1 teaspoon of garden herbs (or you can use your favorite herb mix), 1/2 teaspoon salt, and it will be topped with panko bread crumbs drizzled with melted butter and garlic powder.
Into a large mixing bowl goes pasta, tomato sauce, ham, pineapple, garden herbs, salt, and 1 cup mozzarella. That gets stirred to combine and then poured into a grease 9 x 13 baking pan.
Next I melt 2 tablespoon butter in the microwave and add a teaspoon of garlic powder to it. The second cup of mozzarella goes over the casserole and is topped with the cup of panko bread crumbs. The melted butter and garlic gets drizzled over the panko. Now it is ready to go into a 400 degree oven.
I baked the casserole for 20 minutes until the top was nice and browned.
Nothing left to do now but use my little maniacs as guinea pigs for my Hawaiian pasta casserole.
Luckily for them my brainstorm turned out great – if it hadn’t I certainly would have heard about it!
I was quite happy with the dinner – we made great use of leftover ham and added a new kid friendly casserole to our dinner recipe collection.
- 2 cups ham cooked and cubed
- 2 cups pineapple cubed
- 1 lb pasta cooked
- 1 quart tomato sauce
- 2 cups mozzarella shredded
- 1 teaspoon herb mix
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup panko bread crumbs
- 2 tablespoons butter melted
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease a 9 x 13 baking pan.
- In a large bowl combine ham, pineapple, pasta, tomato sauce, 1 cup mozzarella, herbs, and salt.
- Transfer to 9 x 13 dish.
- Top with other cup mozzarella then the panko.
- Mix melted butter and garlic powder and drizzle over panko.
- Bake 20 minutes until done and browned.
- Allow to cool a few minutes then dish out and serve!
