This Tik Tok Baked Feta Pasta was a recipe that went very viral on Tik Tok a few years ago. I can’t believe we waited so long to try it, because now that we have… it has become a favorite, easy weeknight dinner at our house. It’s a hands-off kind of recipe. Feta cheese and tomatoes are baked in olive oil and garlic until the tomatoes are bursting and the feta has turned into a creamy pool of deliciousness. All is mixed together and combined with your favorite pasta to create a hearty meal with big, bold flavors. Feta cheese and roasted tomatoes are the perfect pairing!
The History of Baked Feta Pasta:
The original recipe (2018) is widely credited to Jenni Häyrinen, a Finnish food blogger and artist. She called it “Uunifetapasta”, which means “oven-baked feta pasta.” Jenni shared the recipe on her blog and Instagram, and it gained huge popularity in Finland. Tik Tok users got wind of the easy recipe a few years later and started sharing it on their platforms. It was a viral trend- so much so that blocks of feta cheese were sometimes difficult to find! People created all kinds of variations of baked feta pasta, and it became an easy dinner favorite for many.
If you love feta cheese as much as we do, you might like to try our watermelon, cucumber and feta arugula salad. It’s so delicious!
This recipe comes from the Taste of Home Cooking School Cookbook: Step-by-Step Instructions, How-To Photos and the Recipes Today’s Cooks Rely on Most. I’m a big fan of Taste of Home, so when they release an interesting cookbook, I’m all over it! This book has 181 classic recipes for every meal. There are full-color photos and nutritional information with every dish. And some of the recipes even include a QR code that you can scan- and it will take you to an instructional video!
Here are several recipes from the book that I want to try:
- Old Fashioned Limeade
- The Ultimate Chicken Noodle Soup
- Seafood Lasagna
- Herb Chicken with Honey Butter
- Chicken Tamales
- Restaurant-Style Prime Rib
- Ultimate Pot Roast
- Sugar-Glazed Ham
- Mom’s Potato Pancakes
- Sweet Candied Carrots
- Strawberry Crepes
- Mudslide Cheesecake
- Strawberry Gelato
Ingredients Needed for Baked Feta Pasta:
- Cherry Tomatoes: You’ll want two pints of cherry or pear tomatoes. Both will work great, but cherry tomatoes have a little more meaty juice inside of them to add to the sauce.
- Garlic Cloves: Just peel and cut into halves.
- Olive Oil: Since olive oil is the base of the sauce, use an olive oil that has good flavor.
- Feta Cheese: You’ll need a block of feta cheese for this recipe.
- Sea Salt and Freshly Ground Black Pepper
- Pasta: Any pasta will be wonderful with this sauce. I usually use fusilli or rotini, but you can also try using tubular pasta or even spaghetti.
- Herbs: Use FRESH basil.
How to make Tik Tok Baked Feta Pasta:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Start with a 9×13-inch baking dish. Drizzle olive oil in the bottom of the pan. You’ll put a whole chunk of feta cheese in the middle of the pan and surround it with the tomatoes and halved cloves of garlic. Then you’ll drizzle more olive oil on top and sprinkle it all with salt and pepper. The tomatoes and the feta will bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the tomatoes begin to break open and the garlic is roasted.
While the good stuff is roasting, cook the pasta according to package direction- to the al dente state. SAVE some of the pasta water (about 1 cup). After cooking, remove the baking dish from the oven and give it all a good stir.
Add the cooked (warm) pasta to the sauce, and stir to combine. Stir in some of the pasta water to help the sauce cling to the pasta. Then add the chopped basil, and give it another stir. It’s ready to serve!
Recipe Tips:
- Feta Cheese Tips: The feta that’s going to be best for this recipe is going to be feta that is packed in brine. Feta made from sheep’s milk (rather than cow or goat milk) is going to be the most smooth and creamy. I’d avoid using low fat feta. And although the recipe will work using crumbled feta, I don’t recommend it. A block of feta works perfectly!
- Tomato Tips: Store your tomatoes on the countertop at room temperature until you use them. They’ll have more flavor if allowed to sit for a while at room temperature vs. being store in the refrigerator. Feel free to add more tomatoes, and crowd them into the dish. The more tomatoes the merrier for the sauce. Try using multi-colored cherry tomatoes too!
- Don’t skimp on the amount of olive oil used. It’s what helps create the sauce for this Tik Tok Baked Feta Pasta!
- Go easy on the salt. Feta cheese is typically pretty salty. So I wait until I can taste the sauce with the pasta before I add any more.
- Leftovers may be stored in a sealed container for up to 3 days in the refrigerator.
Suggested Additions and Substitutions:
- If you want to try a different kind of cheese, I suggest substituting Boursin, goat cheese, cream cheese, fresh mozzarella, fresh ricotta or brie for the feta cheese.
- Quartered shallots or chopped red onion would be a nice addition (to roast along with the tomatoes).
- Chopped spinach, chopped artichoke hearts or sun dried tomatoes would be lovely additions too.
- If you’d like to add a protein, how about cooked Italian sausage, roasted chicken or cooked pancetta?
- Add some red pepper flakes for a spicy twist.
- A drizzle of balsamic glaze stirred into the sauce will add amazing flavor.
- If you’d like to change up the fresh herbs in the recipe, try using fresh thyme or fresh oregano in place of the fresh basil.
Why You’ll Love this Recipe:
- This pasta dish is year-round comfort food.
- Think of how hip and cool your kids will think you are when you tell them that you tried the viral Tik Tok Baked Feta Pasta!
- It’s such an easy recipe because you don’t even need to do much. Besides chopping the basil and halving the garlic, there is no other actual prep involved. The oven does the work for you. And boiling pasta is not hard to do.
Baked Feta Pasta
Ingredients
- 2 pints cherry tomatoes
- 3 medium garlic cloves, halved
- ½ cup olive oil
- One 8-ounce block feta cheese
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 16 ounces fusilli pasta (can sub rotini if fusilli is hard to find)
- fresh basil leaves, chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400℉.
- In a 13×9-inch baking dish, combine the tomatoes, garlic and ¼ cup olive oil. Place the block of feta in the center, moving the tomatoes so the cheese is sitting on the pan bottom. Drizzle the feta with the remaining oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake until the tomato skins start to split and the garlic has softened, 30 to 40 minutes.
- Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to package directions for al dente. Drain reserving 1 cup pasta water.
- Stir the feta mixture, lightly pressing the tomatoes, until combined. Add the pasta and toss to combine. Stir in enough reserved pasta water to achieve the desired consistency. Sprinkle fresh basil on top.