Mushroom and cheese pasta

This is a very easy, cheesy pasta full of mushroom flavour. It comes together very quickly and can be frozen as a pasta bake. This works great to showcase unique mushroom flavours.

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp butter

• 1lb mushrooms, cleaned and roughly chopped

• 3 shallots, diced

• 3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

• 1 tbsp dried thyme

• Salt

• Pepper

• 50g Parmesan, grated

• 100g mozzarella cheese, coarsely grated

• 500g dried pasta

Method

Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil.

Heat a large, high sided skillet on medium-high heat.

Add the butter and heat until it is foaming.

Add the mushrooms to the pan, lightly salt, and leave them for 10 minutes. Stir and cook for another 10 minutes until deeply golden brown and fragrant.

Add the shallot, garlic, thyme, some fresh black pepper, a pinch of salt, and cook for 10 minutes, until softened. Reduce heat to low and cook your pasta to 1-minute less than the cook time on the box. Reserve 3/4 cup of pasta water in a mug.

Add the Parmesan and 1/2 cup of pasta water to mushrooms and stir until a glossy sauce forms. Transfer the pasta to the sauce using a spider strainer. Add in half the mozzarella. Stir to combine. If the sauce looks very thick, add more pasta water and stir to loosen it up.

If serving immediately, top with additional mozzarella.

If freezing, transfer to containers and top with mozzarella. Bake at 350°F from frozen until bubbling in the centre and the cheese on top is browned.