Rigatoni al Forno With Cauliflower and Broccoli Rabe Recipe (2024)

1. Don’t fuss with a béchamel, just use cream. (The extra calories, if you worry about such things, are reduced by the elimination of the oil to make the roux.)2. Why use whole canned tomatoes if you’re going to pass the sauce through a blender? Just use every Italian grandmother’s favorite sauce base: Pomì tomato purée (called “pomodoro passato” here), available in every American supermarket. Save the blender for daiquiri night.

I made this delicious thing tonight. I thought I should share that I did half a recipe. It’s definitely enough for 4 people, minimum. Also, (perhaps because I halved it), it only took 30 minutes to bake. Oh, also, 1/2 recipe filled a 9 by 13 dish. Very delicious!!

I will now call it pasta bake every time I make it, forever.

Why not prepare red sauce while the bechamel and rigatoni are in the oven?

This is delicious but takes longer than needed. Steps should be re-ordered. 1. Preheat oven2. Put water on to boil3. Make Béchamel4. As soon as water’s boiling, start pasta5. Between stirring béchamel and pasta, chop cauliflower and prep the garlic, etc6. Mix it all together and put in oven 7. While baking, make the tomato sauce If you can prep quickly and multi-task, everything will be ready for oven by the time it’s pre-heated (~20 min), and tomato sauce is ready by serving time.

I cook the rigatoni until a few minutes from being done, then add the broccoli raab, then a few minutes later, the cauliflower. All can go in the same colander, saves a lot of time. I saute the garlic, rosemary and red pepper flakes in the pasta pot to release their fragrance, then add the pasta and vegetables, cheese and bechamel. The bechamel is essential!

This was fantastic. I used smoked mozzarella instead of provolone. I found the order of the recipe strange. You can make both sauces and prep the veggies while the water comes to a boil and the pasta cooks. And I would make more bechamel. Mine was slightly dry.

Changed the order to make it more efficient and manageable. Cooked pasta while making bechamel. Used homemade tomato sauce that I had stashed in the freezer (can't imagine making fresh on a week night). One BIG change I would make next time: COVER THE WHOLE DISH WITH FOIL WHILE BAKING. Leaving it uncovered rendered the pasta HARD, not just a little crunchy; it was very difficult to chew. Would uncover for the last 5 min next time.

Re: béchamel, yes, move the pot to a back burner that isn’t being used and keep the pot covered. When it’s time to assemble give the sauce a good stir with a whisk and like they advise, thin with room temp milk if needed.

I'm going to adapt this for my husband, who is allergic to animal milk products—nice that there's a bechamel without cheese. For white sauces, I warm a nut-based milk with vegetables and bay leaf, extra oil, and add nutritional yeast for umami flavor. It's not the real thing, but it'll be good enough.

Ed Giobbi has a similar recipe, Pasta con Ricotta, using ricotta and eggs instead of bechamel. Much easier!

David Tanis never disappoints! Making this pronto!!

How do you keep the bechamel warm if you’ve removed it from the heat? Does that mean just don’t put it in the fridge?

Recipe is easy to follow and works perfectly. So delicious!

This was very tasty but not exceptional in my view. It was also too time consuming and produced too many dirty pots and pans for a weekend night. I saved some time by tackling the sauce and the veggie cooking at the same time, skipping the blending of the sauce (I didn’t need it to be velvety) and by baking the pasta mixture using the convection bake setting.

Husband and two teenagers went nuts over this. It is a bit labor intensive for a weeknight dinner but definitely will become a weekend regular for us. Terrific vegetarian main dish.

I always wanted to try to make béchamel, so this recipe was what I have been looking for. Mixing 2 cups of cheese with the sauce is a good base to create any pasta bake…BUT…this recipe is WAY too much work! If you have lots of help to prep/clean/prep/clean/rinse and repeat, then go ahead.Also, as others have commented, it needs more volume of sauce for a full pound of rigatoni. I used only half of the pasta and it still needed more sauce.

Was great. Use 1/2 lb of pasta (unless feeding a crowd) but keep veggie quantities the same to lighten a bit. Use less garlic if cloves are big. Doesn't need tomato sauce.

A superior pasta bake! If you use broccoli instead of broccoli rabe, use an amount equivalent to the cauliflower and cook it with the cauliflower.

Instructions not clear between Steps 6 and 7! Drain the water first? Seems obvious but not sure. Also seems like a lot of fuss for a relatively simple dish. Why the need for a béchamel? Doesn't seem to add much.

Not the cheesy pasta dish I'd longed for, but that's on me. Blithely threw in lots of cauliflower, and last-minute sub of broccoli (my rabe had gone south) . The veggie bounty was pretty mounded in dish, but the béchamel couldn't cover it all. Next time will be more circ*mspect about veggie volume, or up the bechamel amount.

We have a spicy palette so we added Calabrian chilis to the sauce. It was a show stopper for two dinner parties where the guests were vegetarians.

I used San Marzano crushed for the fantastic sauce, made it first and simmered all through the process. 3 cups are not enough. Double the recipe. People will rave and spoon it on liberally when they inevitably go for seconds. We are Rabe fans so two bunches next time. It reduces quickly. Used Half milk / Half Half & Half in the Bechamel. I would cut the garlic in the pasta mix. It was a tad assertive. One clove minced.

Very good but extremely time consuming

This was a lot of work. I don't know what I was thinking, using the oven and the stove when it's 95, but I did it. Made half the recipe, since there's just us two. Used a bunch of broccolini, since rapini wasn't to be found.Homemade marinara is always best, but I think next time, I'll just use Rao's, since their sauce is excellent (for jarred). Made the full marinara recipe (how do you use 1/2 can tomatoes),so the rest is going into the freezer. Can always use marinara. Delicious!

I've made this twice and loved it. Once with Broccoli and once with broccoli rabe. I'm going to stick my neck out and make a dinner for the village, but use Swiss chard from the garden in place of the broccoli. Dinner for 24, so multiply by 4. Wish me luck!

We loved, loved, loved this. Totally, absolutely worth it despite being what we call a big potchke. Rewarded with a fantastic supper the first night, then plentiful, delicious, no-trouble leftovers. Used immersion blender for tomato sauce, which I kept separate. I suppose author used very simple tomato sauce because there is so much else to do; nevertheless next time I'll sauté the garlic and onions in oil before adding the tomatoes. There will certainly be more next times.

turnip greens worked very well as a substitute for broccoli rabe. excellent dish

Wonderful, beautiful recipe. I preheated the milk with some onion, carrot, and celery and a teaspoon of nutritional yeast in it to give it a richer flavor—and used a bottled sauce. Panko crumbs rolled with some olive oil sprinkled on top. Easier for a weeknight meal.

Just used cauliflower. Threw a bit of spinach inSkipped the rosemary