Delicious Greek Pastitsio {Casserole-Style}
This simple homemade Greek pastitsio knock-off is basically a deconstructed pastitsio in casserole form. It’s knock-your-socks-off delicious.
This simple Greek pastitsio knock-off (and I’m not claiming it’s authentic, people) is basically a deconstructed pastitsio in casserole form.
And it is downright, knock-your-socks-off delicious.
A lightened up, creamy sauce swirls around tender penne pasta and flavorful ground turkey or sirloin. Combined with the other gentle flavors (hints of nutmeg, tomatoes and garlic) and with just a touch of mozzarella cheese and fresh parsley, this dish reminded me of a kicked-up, unique and slightly Greek-influenced beef stroganoff.
Oh, and did I mention it’s quick? And easy?
We devoured this one.
I couldn’t get enough of the creamy, flavorful sauce and fought for the right to the leftovers. Add this one immediately to your weeknight rotation.
You won’t be disappointed!
What To Serve With This:
Divine Breadsticks or Cheesy Garlic Bread
Steamed vegetable like broccoli or peas
Simple green salad (or something more fancy like this Gourmet Green Salad)
One Year Ago: Divine Caramel Sauce
Two Years Ago: Chicken Spiedie Sandwiches
Three Years Ago: Peanut Butter Crunch Snack Balls
Delicious Greek Pastitsio {Casserole-Style}
Ingredients
- 12 ounces penne pasta
- 1 pound ground turkey or ground sirloin
- 1 ½ cups chopped yellow onion, from about 1 large onion
- 1 ¾ teaspoon salt, divided
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 5 cloves garlic, finely minced
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 8 ounces light cream cheese
- 2 cups milk, 1% or skim work great
- ⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
- 1 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Instructions
- Coat a 9X13-inch baking dish with cooking spray and set aside. Preheat the broiler.
- In a large pot of lightly salted, boiling water, cook the penne pasta according to package directions.
- While the pasta is cooking, heat a large 12-inch skillet over medium heat. Add beef or turkey to the pan with the diced onions and 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. Cook, stirring to break up the meat into small pieces, until the meat is cooked through. Drain excess grease from the meat.
- Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, another minute or so. Sprinkle the flour over the meat mixture, stirring to combine, and cook for 1-2 minutes over medium heat.
- Add the cream cheese in pieces, scattering it over the meat. Let it melt into the meat and stir to combine. Whisk or stir in the milk, nutmeg, 3/4 teaspoon salt and tomatoes. Stir to combine well and bring the mixture to a simmer.
- Cook 5-6 minutes until the mixture is slightly thickened and is thoroughly heated through.
- Stir in the pasta and spoon the pasta mixture into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the mozzarella cheese evenly over the pasta and broil for about 3-5 minutes (watching carefully so it doesn’t burn!). Remove from the oven and sprinkle with parsley. Let it stand for about 5 minutes before serving.
Notes
Recommended Products
Recipe Source: adapted from My Recipes (a Cooking Light recipe), recommended to me by my friend, Lesli
Thanks for another winner, Mel! This was absolutely delicious. I’ll probably save this for weekends, though, since it dirties quite a few dishes. I’m looking forward to enjoying the leftovers for lunch the rest of this week. 🙂
Made this tonight – awesome! Having a huge Greek step-family, I love love love standard Pastitsio, but this deconstructed option was perfect for tonight…I did end up using a 50/50 mix of lean ground beef and ground lamb which kept it a bit truer in taste but I know that’s not for everyone, and I’m sure other meat choices would be fine too. Hubs and kids have already declared dibs on the leftovers for lunch tomorrow 🙂
Mel, This was so very easy to make. It took no time at all. I halved the recipe and used a smaller casserole dish. Came out absolutely delicious! Definitely will be a great new mother one!
We are in the middle of a move. I didn’t worry about bringing a cookbook, because I knew I could find plenty of good recipes right here! This was another hit. There are only two of us, so I cut the recipe in half and it worked great. The only trouble I had was that I can’t seem to find it in your recipe index. I had to just follow posts backwards to find it. How am I missing it?
I made this dish the other night and it was such a crowd pleaser. I actually made it for a group of girls who came over the watch “The Bachelor” and some boys caught wind of food and came running… lets just say they enjoyed this dish more than the bachelor 😉
Yum, yum, yum! I love it when a bunch of simple unassuming ingredients combine to be this delicious! Super easy to put together and hearty yet not heavy. And the leftovers were great too. Adding to rotation!
Made this dish last night and it was a hit! LOVED IT!! I’m also looking to leftovers that I’m having on my lunch break!
A new favorite at our house! Have now made it twice…once with turkey, once with beef. I recommend your recipes to whomever will listen.
Thanks so much.
This was fantastic! I upped the veggies by adding bell pepper and celery with the onions, and I tossed in 4 oz fresh spinach at the end when mixing it all together. Thanks again for an awesome meal!
I made this for dinner yesterday and loved it. Thank you!!
Love love love! kids both ate and husband already excited about left-overs!!
I made this tonight for dinner and my pasta-loving husband LOVED it! I’m not exaggerating when I say he had no less than 4 helpings. He said to me “we HAVE to have this again.” And after dinner, he promptly emailed the link to his whole family. Thanks Mel for another dynamite dish! This is the first time I’ve commented but it’s certainly not the first time I’ve made one of your recipes…on the contrary, I use your recipes regularly. And you never disappoint. Thank you thank you!
Jen – my husband hates tomatoes, too. :o) I’m not as thoughtful as you so I figured he could pick them out – ha!! He ate them in this without hesitation (BUT he has no issue w/ texture). I’m glad you asked about grinding them – now I’ll know how to be more thoughtful next time. ;o)
Jen – I don’t think I’d leave out the tomatoes completely. If your sweet, picky husband is ok with the pulverized option, I’d definitely do that. Then you’ll still get the flavor without the texture. Good luck!
Oh heavenly Mel! You’ve done it again! I love it! I had never heard of this, but most of it was pantry ready for me, so I tried it out after a trip to pick up parsley and cream cheese. I must say, the whole pan was devoured by my picky family. Honestly, I was a little nervous about the nutmeg. I like it in pumkin pie, but a cream sauce? I had my doubts, but NO more!! Amazing. I do have to admit that I used diced chicken breast instead of ground meat. Not a huge fan of stroganoff stuff and well, to tell the truth I thought it was a diced chicken recipe and I didn’t realize it wasn’t until I had the recipe out to cook and defrosted chicken in the pan -ooops. BUT, it was amazing! So, anyone that doesn’t have ground beef or turkey- diced chicken works fabulously as well!
Okay, I’m done raving about this one 🙂 Thanks again Mel, you really are my best friend!!
Okay, Tonya’s comments just FORCED me to pin this and make later.
My husband HATES tomatoes… will I be thoroughly missing out if I totally omit them?
Or, possibly, I could grind them up to a pulp and cook it with the ground beef so the FLAVOR is there, just not the chunks? (that’s my go-to technique for onions– he’s a “texture” guy, but doesn’t mind the flavor)
Any advice? He’s a big boy, but he’s the PICKIEST eater and I’m the *only* one who cooks!!! ::sigh::
When this recipe posted I made a change on this week’s menu – had to have this! Forget raindrops on roses & whiskers on kittens! How about pasta & cream cheese, ground turkey & nutmeg?? THESE are a few of my favorite things! DELICIOUS, Mel! DELICIOUS!! My husband agrees – this was just DELICIOUS!! Call me simple, but this turned out to be one of my very favorite dishes. Ever. In my life. Ever.
AND we followed it with the lemon crinkles. Yes & Amen!! Together, my husband & I ate THIRTY-TWO of them. We did not evenly split those 32, but I will NOT tell you whose share was more like 2/3. I will tell you that she plans to hit her final weight loss goal by Valentine’s Day so she should not make more of these until after that. Just sayin’.
Just had this for supper and its awesome!! The only thing that could use changing is that it feeds 6 people. My husband, our three year old and myself almost ate the whole pan, and we had a vegetable and apple sauce to go along with it. Thanks for another great meal !
I made this for dinner and LOVED it! The flavor combination is amazing. Thanks so much for posting it!
I just made this for dinner tonight and it turned out perfectly. FANTASTIC and DELICIOUS. I love how easy the recipe – I will make this often. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Can I just say I’m on the last of the leftovers for lunch, mixed in w/ leftover Indian food (jeera saag – sauteed spinach w/ garlic and cumin) and when mixed up together, it tastes heavenly! Thank you, thank you thank you for this recipe!
Made this tonight and it was soooooo good! I admit I was nervous but it was amazing! Thanks!
when i see a greek dish, i think about ‘my big fat greek wedding’ and automatically smile. it doesn’t hurt that this one is absolutely mouth-watering!
Oh, this is one of my favorite cold weather foods that I have never made. There is a restaurant near me that makes it, but now I clearly have to make it for myself.
Made this last night… it was a hit with everyone! Added oregano and parm cheese as well. It went into my daughter’s lunch, my lunch and will likely be the afterschool snack du jour when my oldest daughter gets home from basketball practice. Thank you for posting it!
I love finding new weeknight recipes. This looks great!
It seems I’m on a pinning streak with your recipes! Our family loves casseroles, this one is definitely going on the must try list.
Made this tonight and my casserole-fearing husband loved it! Said we should add it to our rotation. Incredibly simple and quick to make…a very satisfying comfort meal for the cold(ish), dreary winter weather. Thanks for sharing, Mel.
I have everything on hand to make this except the fresh parsley! It’s going to be replacing my previously scheduled meal on tomorrow’s menu plan. I’ll just use dried parsley unless I happen to drive by the store tomorrow on other errands. Thanks for posting!
Looks delicious! Can’t wait to try it!
How funny…I just came online in hopes of finding a new way of using the ground turkey I have! Got my answer on my first stop! Love it! And I already have all of these ingredients. Everything’s coming up Libby!
This is SO bizarre… this is the second time in one week that I have been thinking of a certain recipe and you had it featured THAT VERY DAY! Awesome! My neighbor growing up was Greek and the ONLY thing she ever made was pastitsio. I couldn’t get it out of my head yesterday… I can’t wait to try this tonight! YAY!
Oh heavens, Allyson, don’t run to the store just for parsley (unless you let me watch your kids for you!). It will miss a bit of the bright freshness but if you are so inclined, throw a teaspoon or so of dried parsley in with the sauce and I think it will fare just fine.
Kim in MD – I think this could definitely be made ahead, especially if you wait to assemble right before (otherwise, the casserole may dry out a bit if left assembled overnight thanks to the noodles sucking up the extra sauce). I hope you like it if you try it!
I came to your site specifically for a pasta dish for tonight – and didn’t make it past your home page! Looks delish. I’ve got everything but the fresh parsley – would I be missing much to omit it (and avoid an extra trip to the store)?
I have a version of this but I use cinnamon instead of the nutmeg. I’m going to try it with the nutmeg next time. Looks great!!
Love that it’s very light! Growing up in a Greek household we had plenty of this and plenty of it went to our hips! Excited to try this. Thanks!
I love this Greek twist on casserole. My husband will love it and it will be perfect for a cold winter night’s dinner!
Oh, I must add this to my dinner menu!
nothing to do with this recipe, but I am your lone male recipe follower, at least of record. I previously raved about the clam chowder which I still make often. But you didn’t say your skillet mac and cheese makes enough for dozens of people. It’s really good and really plentiful. I still love your emails and your blog. Dwight
Im here with you buddy!
A little late to the party, but I am here too. These recipes are great. My family is beginning to think I’m miraculously a chef. lol
my fridge is looking pretty sparse (tuesday is grocery day) but i think i can pull this one off. thanks, mel.
Oh My My mouth is watering! I will make this very soon!
Looks delicious! Pinned it…can’t wait to try!
I know what’s for dinner at my house tonight!
This looks delicious! I’m adding it to my menu lineup!
That looks so good.
Mmm such a nice dish!
This sounds great and very different. I could make this in lightened up form and I love the nutmeg in Pastitsio…with the creamy sauce it’s irresistible.
I have never had Pastitsio, but it looks and sounds delicious! Your timing posting this recipe couldn’t be better, Mel. My BFF and I are hosting a Greek theme party in March! This would be a great addition to our menu. Do you think it could be made the day before the party (you know me and my need to make everything ahead)? Perhaps cook everything but don’t assemble until just before putting in the oven? Thanks, Mel!
what’s not to love about a casserole? Looks great!