Deconstructed Pizza Casserole
Deconstructed Pizza Casserole: a parent’s savior when dinner mayhem strikes. This is a fast and easy pizza recipe that will have you licking your plate clean!
It’s 4:30pm, your stomach is growling and you’re craving pizza hard core. What do you do? Spend $12 on a mediocre pizza, or make an easy (and affordable/budget friendly) pizza casserole at home? Note, a casserole that tastes waaaaay better than take out pizza. #truth.
Pizza Casserole Ingredients
To make a deconstructed pizza casserole you’ll need the basic pizza making ingredients:
- Marinara sauce. You can use legit pizza sauce here if you’d like.
- Ground beef and ground sausage. Having both meats makes for a better balanced flavor, trust me.
- Pepperoni!
- Olives
- Green bell pepper
- cheese!
- A few seasonings for good measure.
- Pasta of your choice.
- Optional: mushrooms.
How to make deconstructed pizza casserole
First, boil some water and cook the pasta.
Pro tip: cook the pasta 2 minutes under al dente. Before you throw away the pasta box/bag, look at the recommended boiling time. Choose the shortest time and boil for 2 minutes less. Here’s an example: if it suggests you cook 11-12 minutes for al dente, only cook the pasta for 9 minutes.
While the pasta is boiling, brown the ground beef, sausage, and onion. Add the garlic and transfer the meat mixture to a large bowl.
To that bowl add the cooked and drained pasta, marinara, chopped peppers, olives, pepperoni, and seasonings.
You can’t forget cheese. Add lots of shredded mozzarella cheese to the bowl! Mix it in real good.
Pizza pro tip: you can add mushrooms to this pizza casserole. I left them out because my husband’s not a fan. You can add mushrooms, banana peppers, more olives, more pepperoni… whatever makes your heart sing.
Assemble the Casserole
Now that all of the ingredients are mixed together, transfer it to a 13 x 9 inch casserole dish and then cover with shredded mozzarella.
Cover with tin foil and bake for 10-15 minutes then remove the foil and bake for an additional 15 minutes or until the cheese is nice and bubbly.
Remove from the oven and serve immediately.
This is a large pizza casserole that will feed up to 8 people. We have a small family and we were able to enjoy this for 2 days. P.S. the leftovers taste amazing!
There were zero complaints about “leftovers” for dinner the following day.
I’m a huge pizza lover! Are you? If so, I know you’ll go crazy for these recipes:
- Pepperoni Pizza Dip, made in a skillet!
- French Bread Pizza, so easy and affordable.
- Nectarine Arugula Pizza because variety is the spice of life! Plus I drizzle a balsamic glaze over the pizza which makes all the difference.
If you make this recipe or any other recipe on the blog please come back and leave a review. If you take a picture of your food creations tag #saltandbaker and share it on social media so that I can see what you made!
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Pizza Casserole
INGREDIENTS
- 16 oz pasta
- 1/2 lb ground beef
- 1/2 lb regular sausage
- 1 small yellow onion diced
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic minced
- 3-4 oz pepperoni cut in half
- 1/2 green bell pepper medium chopped
- 1/2 cup sliced olives
- 24 oz marinara sauce or pizza sauce
- 2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 3 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese shredded
INSTRUCTIONS
- Cook pasta according to package directions, cooking 1-2 minutes under al dente. Drain.
- In a skillet brown the ground beef, sausage, and onion. Drain grease. Add the minced garlic and cook 1 minute more.
- Transfer the cooked meat mixture to a large bowl. Add the pepperoni, bell pepper, olives, marinara sauce, oregano, and basil. Add the cooked noodles and stir to combine.
- Add 2 cups of shredded mozzarella and stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper.
- Pour the mixture into a buttered 13x9 inch baking dish.
- Sprinkle the remaining cheese overtop of the noodles. Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes. Then remove foil and bake for 15 more minutes or until the cheese is bubbling.
- Remove from oven and serve.
This pizza casserole was so so good! Husband loved it, kids loved it! Super easy to put together too.
Glad your family loved it!!
We made this tonight and even our toddler gobbled it up! We omitted the olives and added white mushrooms to fit our taste preferences. We will definitely be making this again!
So glad your family loved the pizza casserole! Thanks for coming back and commenting Jessica!