Can you cook Pasta Bake in an air fryer

Pasta bake while usually cooked in an oven, can absolutely be air fried with the same preparation and cooking time and temperature for an air fryer.

How to cook a pasta bake in air fryer involves cooking at a temperature of 340°F/170°C, for 60 minutes. Mix raw pasta and 500g of pasta sauce in a bowl, piling the raw pasta in suitable tray, a three-quarter of the way up. Cover the pasta bake with a make-shift foil lid, removing the foil lid for an additional 5 minutes to melt cheese at the end.

I've regularly cooked a pasta bake for 4-5 people multiple times in the oven over the years, thus making a pasta bake in the air fryer should be no problem.

While baking a pasta bake was easy enough, there was a few crucial steps I missed out, due to not making a family size pasta bake in a while.

I usually make a Carbonara pasta bake consisting of Leeks, Chicken and Bacon - this air fried pasta bake included chicken only. In doing do, I used extra sauce to cover the top of the pasta bake for the final half of cooking, to avoid a dry pasta bake dish.

Unfortunately, I used a 350g of Mascarprone Pasta Bake Sauce on this occasion, when I should of used a larger jar of 500g, to serve two people.

Pasta bake well good in flavour, the texture of the pasta was a bit rubbery and turned red, due to how the sauce absorbed into the pasta.

I hand no concerns surrounding cooking raw pasta in an air fryer, because I done this multiple times with success, in the big oven.

With that said, I did change to partially boiling the raw pasta in the saucepan prior to mixing into the pasta bake sauce, when I cooked pasta in the oven previously. To use raw pasta directly in a pasta sauce mix, does risk turning into hard crunchy pasta.

Little crunchy pasta bites did remain in this particular recipe, simply because I didn't use enough sauce, which was Heinz Tomato, Grana Padano & Mascarprone.

I recommend you hold back a third of your pasta bake sauce, to pour over the pasta bake in the tray, so there's good coverage to smother the raw pasta in.

You can only air fry a pasta bake this way in a baking tray or re-useable foil tray with high sides, whilst using a sheet of foil to use as a lid, which will help to create steam - which is used to heat the sauce and soften the pasta bake to hopefully an Al Dente texture.

How long to cook Pasta Bake in air fryer

When air frying an homemade pasta bake which consists of a ready to cook jar of pasta sauce, and raw pasta shells, it will take 60 minutes for most pasta bake dishes to cook.

If you've pre-cooked the pasta prior to air frying, then it would take less time of between 30-40 minutes.

I air fried a cook from raw pasta which took 60 minutes, simply because this is how long its take to soften the raw pasta. I would prefer to part boil the pasta - to prevent hard pasta in the end product - but for this process, I thought it would be a good idea to cook it all from raw.

An additional 5 minutes was added on top of the 60 minutes - 65 minutes in total - which is needed to melt the cheese on top of what should be a fully cooked pasta bake.

It takes 60 minutes to bake an homemade pasta bake in the air fryer, which is a little longer than an oven baked pasta dish for me. I think covering the pasta in a foil lid does delay the cooking time - yet its vitally important to stop the pasta bake rapidly drying out.

Prepare Pasta Bake dish

You should have one air fried chicken breast cooked, allowed to cool, and cut into slices; ready to be added to your saucy pasta bake mix.

• STEP 1: Measure RAW PASTA three-quarters up the tray - Depending on how much or little pasta you want to air fry, don't overcrowd your baking tray
• STEP 2: Return raw pasta to mixing bowl - Now you know how much pasta to mix in with your sauce, pour the raw pasta into a suitable mixing bowl
• STEP 3: Add 500g of your favourite pasta bake sauce to bowl - Pour a whole 500g jar of your favourite pasta bake sauce into the mixing bowl

• STEP 4: Mix thoroughly together; pour pasta bake mix into tray - Mix pasta and sauce, making sure to cover every spot of raw pasta
• STEP 5: Sink cooked Chicken Breast slices into pasta bake mix - in addition to, or vegetables depending on what you fancy, be sure pre-cooked meat in particular is sunken beneath the pasta sauce - even if I didn't here, because I stupidly used only 350g of pasta sauce.
• STEP 6: Cover tray with a custom foil lid - Cut a fit-to-size sheet of foil to cover over your particular baking tray/container, with NO piercing the foil lid because you don't want the steam to escape

NOTE: Don't overfill or compact the pasta and chicken/vegetables as it will effect the quality. Loosely fill your tray with enough sauce leftover to cover the top - which isn't something I did here - as I forget to unfortunately.

How to cook Pasta Bake in air fryer

You will be essentially steaming the pasta bake, which is the only way to bake raw pasta. Ensure the foil lid is firmly in place, because you don't want that lid coming off - which will lead to dry, crispy pasta.

• STEP 1: Set temp to 340°F/170°C; time to 60 Minutes - Long cooking time is expected, with a low temperature
• STEP 2: Cook for entire time undisturbed - I recommend you don't unravel the foil lid to check to see how the pasta bake is going, as the steam will escape. You must open the foil lid to check to see if pasta is soft enough at the end

• STEP 3: Remove foil lid; toss over in in tray - Remove makeshift foil lid, carefully mix all of the pasta bake around
• STEP 4: Add additional 5 Minutes; Melt grated cheese to top - Add a generous amount of your favourite grated cheese; dial in an additional 5 minutes; air fry until cheese is melted and preferable golden

NOTE: Air frying cooking instructions are modified a little to counteract any mistakes made on what was my first attempt at air frying a pasta bake, made with raw pasta and a store-bought jar of pasta sauce.

How to improve this air fried Pasta Bake

While I didn't air fry this first-time in an air fryer pasta bake to the very best it could be, a few changes will need to be made on my part, to remedy these easy to fix mistakes.

Initially I air fried the pasta bake for 45 minutes, because that's how long it normally takes in the oven. Well, this isn't the oven, this is an air fryer which really does cook faster.

Why I had to extend the time from 45 minutes to 60 minutes, because the foil lid slowed down the cooking process, with no direct heat reaching the pasta bake dish. I could pierce a few holes in the foil - but I don't want to risk drying out the pasta.

With that, I didn't use a large enough pasta bake jar, which was really made for one person at 350g.

You therefore must use a minimum 500g jar of pasta bake sauce.

In addition, you must hold a approximately 100g of pasta sauce back, to pour over the raw pasta and sauce already placed inside the tray. I failed to do this, which did result in a rather dry pasta bake.

Cook pasta bake dish in TWO MEAL size tray

I can't emphasis the need to use a small portion of raw pasta which should only be enough to fill an air fryer-safe tray of any kind, measuring approximately 22cm in length, 15cm wide, and 5cm high.

Measurements are based on a re-usable foil tray I used for this demonstration, which can of course be wider or smaller, higher or shorter - which depends on what you have to hand - with an option to use an air fryer-safe metal baking tray.

Foil tray held enough pasta bake mix to serve two people a small but fair portion of pasta bake, but would be too much for one.

I believe what kind of baking tray or foil container you use, a 500g of pasta sauce will be enough to feed two people. I did initially feel this was enough to for one person, when in fact, this will be a meal for two.

Whilst I used what was a pre-cooked in the air fryer chicken breast, if I'm being honest, adding a whole chicken breast to the tray did make it difficult to introduce to an already overcrowding pasta bake tray... so I used about half a chicken breast for this reason.

Remember then, you will be air frying a pasta bake meal for two people, or a large dish for one, so have garlic bread or a salad prepared to serve with your pasta bake.

Summary

You can cook a pasta bake in an air fryer by mixing together a three-quarter worth of raw pasta - measured three-quarter way up in the baking tray of choice - along with a 500g jar of your favourite pasta bake sauce.

I did count individual Rigatoni pasta I used for this air fryer pasta bake instructions, which was 110 in total, but maybe just one hundred would of done.

So there you have it, 100 pasta shells to a 500g jar of pasta sauce is the exact measure to use, to make an air fried pasta bake meal for two.

What you don't know is, I made lots of mistakes with my first air fried pasta bake, which I've tried my best to hide in these instructions, but these mistakes are absolutely worth knowing about - to be sure you don't do it yourself.

First of all, I used a 350g jar of pasta sauce when it should of been 500g. Due to too little sauce, the pasta was dry with ZERO SAUCE in this final dish. With that, I didn't keep any sauce back to pour over the top of the pasta bake in the tray; which is a must to cover the whole pasta bake, to prevent it from drying out.

Air fry an homemade pasta bake in a tray of any kind - I used a re-usable foil tray - which must absolutely be covered in a sheet of foil as it air fries, to stop it drying out.

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