Baked pasta with purple cauliflower sauce

Delicious, light, and indulgent, with soft pastel colors, beautiful to look at as well as to eat.
It’s true, we eat with our eyes first and then with our mouths.
The purple cauliflower, known as “the Sicilian,” has a more delicate flavor than its synonymous “cousins.”
We will create a delicate cauliflower sauce to dress the pasta, which will then be enriched with smoked provola and cooked ham.
Let’s get to know the purple cauliflower “the Sicilian.”
It has multiple properties like blue or various shades of purple fruits and vegetables, such as eggplants, radicchio, figs, blueberries, plums, currants, black grapes, or purple cabbage; the purple cauliflower is also rich in valuable nutrients, including anthocyanins, which are pigments that color certain plant-based foods red and blue and have anti-inflammatory, anti-platelet, microcirculation protective, and antioxidant properties, carotenoids, vitamin C, potassium, and magnesium.

Anthocyanins also perform the important function of “scavengers” in the body, both countering the action of carcinogenic agents and harmful free radicals and lowering blood cholesterol levels.

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Baked pasta with purple cauliflower sauce

Cost: Economical
Preparation time: 40 Minutes
Portions: 4
Cooking methods: Boiling, Oven
Cuisine: Regional Italian
Region: Sicily
Seasonality: Autumn, Winter, and Spring

416.88 Kcal

calories per serving

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Energy 416.88 (Kcal)
Carbohydrates 40.41 (g) of which sugars 6.21 (g)
Proteins 19.82 (g)
Fat 19.90 (g) of which saturated 9.13 (g)of which unsaturated 5.50 (g)
Fibers 4.54 (g)
Sodium 745.95 (mg)

Indicative values for a portion of 350 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA^* and FoodData Central^** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.

^* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ^** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov

Ingredients

Let’s go shopping

1 lb lbs cauliflower (purple or any other color)
2 cups cups béchamel sauce (see my recipe)
10.5 oz oz pasta
3.5 oz oz smoked provola (cubed)
3.5 oz oz cooked ham (cubed)
to taste salt
to taste pepper

Tools

What we need to make

1 Knife
1 Pot
1 Immersion blender
1 Cutting board
1 Baking dish

Steps

Baked pasta with purple cauliflower sauce

The first thing to do is wash the cauliflower, breaking off the florets.
Wash thoroughly under running water and then..
Place a pot on the stove with salted water and as soon as it starts to boil, drop the cauliflower in.
Cover the pot and boil for 10 minutes.
Then, with a slotted spoon, remove the cauliflower from the boiling water and cool it under cold water, so it retains its vibrant color.
Do not discard the water because we will need it later.
Separate the base part of the florets, the green part, and set it aside.
Now prepare the béchamel, follow my recipe by clicking here.
As soon as the béchamel is ready, add the light part of the cauliflower florets, saving the blue florets. Combine them with the béchamel, along with 200 ml of the previously boiled water.
Blend everything and set aside.
In the remaining water, you can drop the pasta; if more is needed, add tap water.
In the meantime, cut the ham and provola into cubes.
It’s time to drain the pasta halfway through cooking, remember.
Dress it with half of the cauliflower sauce
and make a layer in a baking dish.
add half of the diced ham and provola,
then half of the cauliflower florets. Repeat the operation and lastly…
pour the rest of the cauliflower cream over the pasta
and the rest of the cauliflower florets. Bake at 356°F for 10 minutes and another 5 minutes on grill at 392°F.
Here is the Baked Pasta with Purple Cauliflower Sauce, ready.