Taco Pasta Bake

Taco Skillet Pasta is everything you love about a taco, all in one flavor-packed casserole. Protein-rich lean ground beef cooks into a delicious meaty sauce. Antioxidant-rich veggies fill the casserole and stud the dish with eye-pleasing color—and don’t forget about all of the gut-friendly fiber you’ll get from those veggies and the whole-wheat pasta. Salsa, tomato paste and beef broth are smart additions to give a deep slow-cooked flavor that can’t be matched. Top it all off with a gooey, cheesy topping, and this is a winner-winner taco dinner any night of the week. Keep reading for expert tips on which kinds of pasta work the best and how they help thicken the sauce.

Tips from the EatingWell Test Kitchen

These are the key tips we learned while developing and testing this recipe in our Test Kitchen to make sure it works, tastes great and is good for you too! 

• Cooking the pasta in the sauce does more than save you from another dish to clean. The starches in the pasta thicken the sauce, which adds creaminess to the pasta without extra dairy.
• It’s a good idea to use a heavy-bottomed skillet when cooking one-pot meals with pasta to prevent the ingredients from scorching on the bottom.
• A firmer avocado is easier to chop up into small pieces. 
• You can substitute the whole-wheat penne pasta with whole-wheat elbow noodles or fusilli pasta.

Nutrition Notes

• Lean ground beef is a great source of protein that is convenient and fast to cook up for a weeknight dinner. Protein is essential for building and repairing muscle after a good strength-training workout, and the iron and zinc will help keep your immune system in good shape. Look for a fat content of 10% or less to be considered “lean” beef. 
• This recipe uses two types of peppers: red bell peppers are mildly sweet and give a big boost of vitamin C—which can help reduce inflammation in the body, and the jalapeños contain a compound called capsaicin—that is what gives peppers their spiciness, and it may also be beneficial for your heart health. 
• Corn is considered a whole grain and a vegetable, depending on how it’s prepared. Either way, you get a good dose of gut-healthy fiber every time you eat it—fresh or frozen. Corn also contains two important antioxidants, lutein and zeaxanthin, which are extremely beneficial for healthy eyesight. 
• Tomatoes contain an antioxidant called lycopene, which may help protect the body from inflammation, and eating tomatoes can benefit your heart and immune health. There is lycopene in fresh and canned tomatoes, but lycopene content is higher in canned, so add a few more cans to your pantry.