Ok, so I’ll be honest and tell you up front that I am not a fan of ham. I like bacon. Wait. I LOVE Bacon. Ham…eh…
But! My family loves ham. They love ham like I love bacon. So I won’t prevent them from eating it…ha. You can check out our shopping trip and see what else we purchased in my Google+ album.
This recipe is for Cheesy Ham Rotini.
The Ingredients
- 1 16 ounce box of rotini
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 pound ham we used Petit Jean Hickory Smoked Ham
- 1 cup chopped celery
- 2 small cloves garlic, minced
- 1 bunch green onions, sliced
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 1 1/2 cups milk, we used 2%
- 6 ounces shredded Cheddar cheese
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
- 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2/3 cup shredded Parmesan cheese, divided (or about 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese)
- Leftover crumbled bacon (about 3-4 strips…more if you have it!)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350° and butter a 2-quart casserole. Cook the Rotini according to the instructions. While the Rotini is cooking prepare the other ingredients.
In a large skillet, heat 1 TBSP of butter over medium heat. Add the celery and cook while stirring occasionally. You only need to cook this for about 5 minutes.
Add the ham and cook just until the ham is lightly browned and celery is tender.
Add the garlic and green onions and cook for about 1 minute longer.
Remove this from heat and set aside. Check your pasta! There is nothing I hate more than slimy over cooked pasta! Check it…I’ll wait….
If it’s done be sure to drain and rinse.
In a large saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the remaining butter. Add the flour and stir until blended. Add the milk being sure to stir! Do this until it has thickened up.
Now you want to stir in the shredded Cheddar cheese, salt and pepper. Continue cooking until the cheese has melted.
Now add the rotini as well as the ham mixture to the cheese sauce. Stir it all up so that the cheese sauce has coated everything with its cheesy goodness. Now go ahead and stire in half of the Parmesan cheese.
Now spread that in the buttered casserole dish.
Sprinkle the remaining Parmesan cheese on top.
Now make it even better with bacon! Crumble up some bacon and sprinkle it all over the top. We had some left over from breakfast.
Bake for about 20 to 30 minutes, until bubbly and lightly browned.
Now dish it out and feed the masses…
I ate this and even had seconds! That says a lot!
This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. #CBias
Recipe was adapted from About.com.
