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The cheesiest, creamiest, sauciest, Butternut Squash Rigatoni Pasta Pie. Best for nights when you’re craving Italian, but also craving fall flavors. Butternut squash roasted with garlic, shallots, and fresh sage is pureed into a creamy cheese sauce with buttery gouda cheese. The sauce is baked into the rigatoni for a fun, saucy pasta pie. Crispy-salty prosciutto adds a little crunch on top. Roll your eyes back GOOD!
Well, isn’t this fun? When I started making this I was so nervous. I just wasn’t sure how it would turn out. Sometimes dishes like this can be amazing, and better than I envisioned. Other times they’re disastrous.
But this turned out! And it’s so good, even better than I dreamt up in my head.
So I am so excited to share!
Prior to this recipe, I’d only made a rigatoni pasta pie once before. It was back during the 1st or 2nd year of HBH. It was also a butternut squash pie but with gorgonzola and a different method of cooking. It’s an old, old recipe. I’m sure it’s just fine, delicious even, but this is better.
My version today is easier, creamier, and has a few different flavors. But most importantly, it’s just delicious.
The details
I did my best to keep this easy and minimize the steps. This may look a little fancy, but it’s quick and honestly fun to make.
The heart of the pasta is really all in the butternut squash. It’s in season throughout fall and always so delicious when roasted up. Roast the squash, garlic, and herbs together on the same sheet pan. As the squash roasts, the garlic caramelizes, and the herbs infuse everything with flavor.
Toss the squash with garlic, shallots, sage, a small drizzle of honey, chili flakes, salt, and pepper.
While the squash roasts, boil the pasta. Be sure to save some of the water for thinning the butternut sauce.
When the squash has finished roasting, puree everything on the pan with a splash of milk, hot pasta cooking water, and gouda cheese until smooth. You can do this in a food processor or blender.
At this point, arrange the noodles upright in a spring-form pan. If you don’t have a spring form pan, no big deal, just use a regular baker with a flat bottom. Pour the sauce over the noodles and let it sink down into every nook and cranny.
It is going to seem like a lot of sauce, but this is the real secret. So much butternut cheese sauce!
Top the pie with more cheese and then some prosciutto. If you’re not a prosciutto fan simply omit it.
Bake until the cheese is melty and the sauce is bubbling up. The prosciutto should be nice and crispy too! The edges of the pasta should have a little crust and everything will smell delicious.
The cheese sauce really melts into the pasta making every bite even more perfect than you can imagine. Like mac and cheese meets ravioli. Trust me, it is so good!
Looking for other butternut squash recipes? Here are a few ideas:
Creamy Roasted Garlic Butternut Squash Pasta
Rosemary Roasted Butternut Squash Pizza
Roasted Butternut Squash and Spinach Lasagna
Butternut Squash Pasta Carbonara with Rosemary Bacon
Fall Harvest Roasted Butternut Squash and Pomegranate Salad
Hasselback Butternut Squash with Sage Butter and Prosciutto Breadcrumbs
Lastly, if you make this Butternut Squash Rigatoni Pasta Pie be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Above all, I love to hear from you guys and always do my best to respond to each and every comment. And of course, if you do make this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram! Looking through the photos of recipes you all have made is my favorite!
Butternut Squash Rigatoni Pasta Pie
Servings: 8
Calories Per Serving: 314 kcal
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 4 cups cubed butternut squash
- 4 cloves garlic smashed,
- 1 shallot, halved
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
- chili flakes
- kosher salt + black pepper
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 1 cup milk
- 1 1/2 cups shredded gouda cheese
- 2 tablespoons salted butter
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 pound rigatoni pasta
- 8 slices prosciutto
- 1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves
Instructions
- 1. Preheat oven to 425° F.2. On a baking sheet, toss together the butternut squash, garlic, shallots, sage, olive oil, honey, and a pinch each of chili flakes, salt, and pepper. Bake 15 minutes, toss, then bake another 10-15 minutes, until the squash is tender.3. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta according to package directions until al dente. Just before draining, remove 1 1/2 cups of the pasta cooking water. Drain.4. Add the roasted butternut squash, garlic, shallots, milk, gouda cheese, and butter, to a food processor. Pour over 1 cup hot pasta water and puree until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Thin the sauce with additional pasta water. 5. Grease a 9-inch spring form pan with olive oil. Arrange the rigatoni in the pan, standing on their ends. Pour the butternut sauce over the pasta, pushing the sauce into the holes, filling them up. I used ALL the sauce. Sprinkle over the mozzarella. 6. Arrange the prosciutto over the cheese. Top with oregano. Bake 25-30 minutes, until the sauce is bubbly. Let sit 5 minutes before serving, then devour.
This is my favourite pasta recipe!! So delicious! I am obsessed and share it with everyone. I find it takes me longer than an 1.5 hours to make it but it is so worth it. I make this recipe all year long. Thank you!! 🙂
Awesome! So glad you enjoyed the recipe! Have a great week! xT
Can this be prepared ahead of time and frozen?
Hey Tami,
Totally, that will work well for you! I hope you love this recipe, let me know how it turns out! xT
Made this for the second time today! So delicious and a perfect marriage of flavors/herbs/spices! Love the creamy sauce sooo much. Don’t even think of skimping on the prosciutto topping… *chef kiss*
Hey Christina,
Happy Monday!!☃️ Thanks a lot for making this recipe and sharing your review, I love to hear that it was a winner! xx
This is an excellent recipe. As I’m not a baker it was my first foray into using a springform pan, but it worked great. With most pasta recipes I cut the amount of pasta in half because they usually call for too much. However, in this case, standing each rigatoni on end, it was just right. Getting the puree into each little pasta flute was the key. I used one medium butternut squash and half a sweet onion (since I didn’t have any shallots on hand). The puree came out actually quite similar to my squash soup (which I make with buttercup squash), so next time I might just make my soup and not thin it quite so much. I think I’ll also slice up the prosciutto into ribbons instead of making larger flowers on top. But I’ll certainly make it again!
Hey Jim,
I am delighted to hear that this recipe turned out well for you and appreciate you giving it a try! Have a great weekend:)
Loved. I used freeze-dried sage as I couldn’t get hold of fresh, bacon instead of pancetta, and used Conchiglioni instead of Rigatoni
100 percent would make again.
One question? I am not sure I used the correct amount of pumpkin, as there is uncertainty in cup measurements for items such as this, what would the grammage (g) be?
Hey Nicole,
Happy Friday!! I appreciate you making this recipe and sharing your feedback, so glad to hear this was enjoyed! So sorry, I’m not sure of that measurement in grams. xT
Omgosh soooo delish
Hey Kathy,
Awesome!! I love to hear that this recipe turned out well for you and appreciate you giving it a try! xT
this was so good . Thank you
Hey Laura,
Happy Monday!❄️🎄 I appreciate you making this recipe and sharing your review, so glad to hear it was enjoyed! xT
This was great! My family and I loved it, will definitely be making this again:) 100/10
Hey Emanuella,
Wonderful!! Thanks so much for making this recipe, I love to hear that it was enjoyed!! Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃
I made this recipe and everyone loved it. I made it with smoked Gouda and had a harvest salad with kale, roasted pears, dried cranberries and pecans.
Hey Valerie,
Amazing!! I love to hear that this recipe was a hit, thanks so much for making it! Have the best weekend!❄️
Good morning Tieghan! I can’t tell you in words how much I appreciate you your blog, your recipes, your energy and spirit! You truly are a remarkable and inspirational young woman! Thank you for sharing all that with us!
I love cooking and baking and being a 100% Scandinavian it’s a big part of my upbringing , although not with quite the amount of bold and strong flavors and colors that your recipes bring to food so this makes using your recipes extra fun.!
I have prepared food from many of your Halfbaked Harvest recipes and last fall and winter I was on a recipe (or two if I made a goodie) a day marathon, that was fun and we ate so well and judging from my children’s reaction there wasn’t a recipe anyone didn’t like (it even taught my youngest daughter to like more variety of food and flavor and start to appreciate spicy food, and that is so meaningful to me as she was quite a picky eater, well, it’s all relative right!). Life is good with Halfbaked Harvest in your kitchen, I have three of your cookbooks sitting out on my shelf as well!
Unfortunately I was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic breast cancer in May 2020 and has been very up and down with my health for quite a while, a lot of the time I’m on really strong immune suppressing treatments that mess with me and my tastebuds. If I have the energy to cook Halfbaked Harvest really comes to a rescue to nourish us and bring flavors to our meals again and again, there isn’t many other recipes that tastes so delicious at the time, it’s just the right blend of ingredients and flavors, thank you for sharing your gift with us!
If I had the energy and strength I wish I could open a Halfbaked Harvest Home cooking restaurant or food cart in our little town so I could share your amazing healing flavors with others!!! Not sure if that would be ok to do though?
I wish I somehow could inspire my youngest daughter to start showing interest in experimenting with your recipes so that she could help me cook when I’m down, she was really interested in baking for a while but hasn’t shown much interest lately (I must say I have myself to blame, I let her have a smart phone this past summer before she started seventh grade, she doesn’t have many apps but there’s enough distractions to take her away from what’s happening around her in the present moment , I have a love/hate relationship with smart phones).
Enough about my story! I have question for you; I am wondering if there’s any possibility to make a change in our recipe boxes so that the different titles are alphabetically placed; breads, cakes dips, pastas, pasta casserole’s, salads, soups etc. I believe it would really help for ease of finding recipes I/we saved.
I’m not sure if that’s already possible or if that’s a change you would have to make happen?!
I would appreciate your feedback, thank you!
With gratitude,
Johanna Holland, Hood River
ps. My son Nainoa is a big snowboarder here on Mount Hood, he’s friends with
Sean FitzSimons Olympic snowboarder from Hood River, friend of your brother Red? I believe? Small world!
Hi Johanna,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment. I am so glad you have been making and enjoying so many recipes! I truly appreciate your support and you sharing all of your meals with family and friends!
I’m so very sorry to hear about your diagnosis, I can’t imagine what that must be like for you. Sending you positive vibes and good health. I’m sure your daughter might come around to cooking/baking soon!
I can definitely look into this suggestion regarding the recipe box, thanks for sharing!
Wow, what a small world for sure! I know Red loves going to Hood in the summers! Happy Thanksgiving!!
xTieghan
Yummy recipe! However the sauce didn’t make it to the bottom of the noodles, even with 1.5 cups of pasta water added.
Hey Lana,
Wonderful!! I love to hear that this recipe was a hit, thanks so much for making it and sharing your review:) Hmmm sorry to hear this! I’m not sure why that would have happened to you! xx
Hi! Love your recipes!! This looks amazing and I am so excited to make it! If this was prepared the day before do you think it would still bake off the same? This will be a side dish for roasted pork tenderloin and I am trying to get ahead of when our company arrives. Given it is a side dish for 12 people should I double or do you think it would work as is? Thanks so much!!
Hey Kristen,
Yes, that would be just fine for you to do and I don’t think it needs to be doubled as a side dish. Please let me know if you have any other questions! xT
I accidentally mixed the Gouda and mozzarella so I split it between the sauce and the topping. Still, SO GOOD. Fiancé called it “incredible”. Will be making this again. Thank you!
Hey Hillary,
Happy Thursday! I love to hear that this recipe was a hit, thanks so much for making it! xT
Question! Do you use freshly shredded gouda and mozzarella, and/or can pre-shredded be used in a pinch? Thanks so much! I’m so excited to try this.
Hi Claudia,
I always grate my own cheese:) But in a recipe like this, pre-shredded should be okay for you to use! Let me know if you have any other questions, I hope it’s delish! xT
I made this yesterday and oh my goodness!! I love all your recipes but this one.. I literally was thrown back when I had a taste of the pasta sauce from the food processor, and I immidiately went to my husband with a spoon. He kept saying several times during dinner how good it was. And I thought I could just eat (drink) the pasta sauce alone. Didn’t have gouda at home so I used cheddar, also just added some extra onions and garlic because I love it. Thanks for another awesome recipe, I’ll definitely do this over and over again 🙂
Hey Sara,
Lol so glad to hear that this recipe was a hit, thanks so much for making it:) Hope you’re having a great weekend! xT