Tuna Pasta Bake

Serves 4

(Leftovers can be frozen)

I love comfort food, and this is one of our ultimate easy go-to recipes. I love having a stash of homemade white sauce in the freezer so that I don't have to do anything more than cook the pasta, assemble and shove it in the oven!

INGREDIENTS:

Freezer (you can use fresh if you have them!)

40g frozen butter

Handful frozen grated cheddar (for sauce)

2 Handfuls frozen grated cheddar (for top - use more or less depending on how much you like cheese!)

Handful frozen broccoli

Handful frozen sweetcorn

Fridge/Cupboard

450ml milk

40g plain flour

1 tin tuna

150g pasta

METHOD:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees c

2. Put the pasta on to boil and cook for about 8 minutes. Whilst it is cooking follow steps 3 - 5

3. Put the butter in a separate pan and melt.

4. Once melted, add the flour and stir/whisk to make a paste. Quickly add a little of the milk and stir to combine. Keep adding the milk gradually. The mixture will become quite loose, but just turn the heat down a little and keep on stirring. After a few minutes it will start to thicken up.

5. Stir in the grated frozen cheese (I freeze my own - see @canifreezeit) and once melted remove from the heat. If it thickens too much just add a touch more milk.

7. Once cooked (al dente), drain and put in an oven safe dish. Add the frozen broccoli (I freeze my own), frozen sweetcorn, tuna and the sauce to the dish and stir well.

6. Sprinkle the grated cheese over the top and cook in the oven for around 30/40 minutes until golden on top. Season as desired. .

.

Top Tip: double up the portion of white sauce, then freeze half flat in a freezer bag. Next time you want tuna pasta bake, or lasagne, you’ll have some homemade white sauce ready to go! 👏

ALSO... you could go crazy and double everything... then freeze the finished dish for another day when you don’t feel like cooking!

If your family don’t get to all sit down together, or if you like alone, portion the bake up into single portion foil trays and you can cook them from frozen. Just remove the cardboard lid, cover with foil and cook for about 40 minutes, then take the foil off and cook for another 10/20 minutes until steaming hot in the middle and golden on top 😊