I’m all for viral Tiktok food trends. They must be spreading like wildfire for a delicious reason, wouldn’t they? The tortilla Tiktok hack is easy to understand how delicious it is. I also reluctantly tried out “sour patch kid grapes”, which tasted just like the ingredients: halved green grapes and a slice of lime. When this feta pasta craze graced my timeline in early February, it truly felt like every second pasta dish was this post. And on every trip to the grocery store, we would spot numbers of people with feta & cherry tomatoes in their cart. I had to try it.

When going with a recipe, I always like to do the bare minimum, then build the flavours on the next try, so we just went with cherry tomatoes, feta, garlic, herbs & pasta. My thoughts on this “bare bones” recipe? There are some extremely mixed reviews on this.

To me, the baking method is genius, and very convenient. While I found that the flavour of un-cooked tomatoes isn’t my favourite. The sauce becomes too sour and acidic and needs a balance of sweetness– which usually comes from adding sugar! It feels as though the recipe is missing an extra dimension. The extra sprinkle of cheese truly helped bridge this gap, but to take it to a do-able meal, I would recommend a few other variationsto make the pasta even better! This recipe serves 2-3!

Ways to upgrade your baked pasta

  • The more garlic, the better. Baking the garlic will make them very sweet and caramelized.
  • Use mozzarella, cream cheese, goat cheese or ricotta instead of feta! Or even boursin.
  • For a savoury taste, add pancetta, anchovies or sausage meat (broken into 1cm pieces)
  • Use whatever pasta you please, or not, and sub with zoodles (zucchini noodles)
  • Make it briny with olives and capers
  • Add chili flakes for some spice
  • Go the extra creamy step and blend the sauce before enveloping the pasta in
  • Finish off your pasta with an extra sprinkle of cheese and broil until golden

Let’s Make: Cheesy Baked Feta Pasta

Serves: 2-3
Preparation time: 20

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Ingredients:

100g Feta
250g Cherry Tomatoes
2 tbsp Olive oil
¼ tsp Oregano
1-2 tbsp Garlic, minced or halved
200g Pasta of your choice
Handful spinach
Pepper to taste
¼ cup Cheese, shredded to top

  1. Boil pasta according to package instructions, until al dente. Arrange cherry tomatoes, garlic, feta & oregano into an oven-safe dish. Drizzle olive oil. Mix tomatoes & garlic to allow even coating.
  2. Place in the oven for 20-30 minutes at 400°F until feta and tomatoes are lightly browned and just bursting
  3. Remove from the oven and mix. Mash garlic if whole. Add in cooked pasta. Add in spinach. Add cheese & pepper to taste.