This was inspired by baked ziti, a traditional Italian pasta dish. Lacking ziti noodles, and craving the combo of butternut squash and goat cheese, I cooked up this comfort food breakfast with penne, instead. The yolks were a wonderful complement to the sauce and cheese! Also, I happened to have gluten-free chickpea pasta so that’s what I used, but regular penne work too.

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 1 full box of penne or ziti pasta
• 1 full jar of butternut squash pasta sauce (I didn’t make my own – but here’s a recipe if you want to!)
• A large handful of crumbled goat cheese
• A handful of grated parmesan (if you want extra cheese)
• Seasoning, as desired

Estim. Pasta Prep Time: 15 mins. Cooking Time: 25 mins.

Steps:

• Cook the pasta. When I make recipes like this, I typically make all of the pasta the night before, eat a little for dinner, and then use the leftovers for breakfast.
• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
• Coat the bottom of a small, shallow baking pan with a bit of olive oil. The pan shouldn’t be bigger than 1 square foot. If you use a larger pan, you’ll need more pasta.
• Fill the baking pan with your cooked pasta, then slowly cover the pasta with a layer of the butternut squash sauce. Use a ladle to smooth out the sauce and help it seep down into the noodles. No need to actually stir – you want a thick layer of sauce on top for the eggs.
• Sprinkle the goat cheese and any extra parmesan cheese you’d like all over the sauce.
• Bake for 10 minutes.
• Remove pasta from the oven, and use a ladle to make 4 indentations in the (now very melty and cheesy) sauce. Crack an egg into each indent.
• Season to taste – I used parsley and a Tuscan spice mix.
• Bake again for about 15 minutes, but check on the eggs occasionally – you want the whites to cook through, but the yolks to still be jiggly and therefore runny.
• Once the eggs are done to your liking, remove from the oven and let cool.
• Dig in to your creation, take a pic, tag me, and enjoy!