Pizza Casserole

This Pizza casserole combines the delicious comfort of a casserole with the flavors of a pepperoni pizza.

This casserole is so quick and easy to put together, tastes fantastic, is adaptable, and is even more delicious reheated the next day.

This casserole uses both pizza sauce and mushroom soup - these two flavors combine beautifully together to create a gorgeous casserole base. 

For The Secret Recipe Club this month, I was assigned to Melissa's Cuisine. This recipe blog is just fantastic. Melissa and I are of about the same age, although I am not to be married until next April, Melissa has been happily married since 2010, together, Melissa and her husband have a gorgeous baby girl and a little puppy. How great does this new family sound?! And they are one lucky family indeed, with Melissas absolutely AMAZING recipes. Melissa has been in the kitchen since a young age and has developed a great cooking style which I immediately fell in love with.

I had SUCH a hard time choosing this months recipe. Every new page I clicked on just added more recipes to the "definitely consider" pile. Eventually I narrowed down to Dulce de Leche Pie, Strawberry Raspberry Cobbler, and Pizza Casserole. I desperately wanted to make and post all three, but in the end I chose the casserole, since I think I post enough sweets around here! But I am excited to be making the pie and cobbler in the near future.

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Pizza Casserole

Serves 6

1 pound (450 g) ground beef
1 pound (450 g) egg noodles*
1 (14 oz, 400g g) can pizza sauce
1 (10.5 oz, 300 g) can cream of mushroom soup
2 cups shredded Mozzarella
3 oz (85 g) pepperoni
Additional pizza toppings - I used pork sausage and diced onion

1. In a fry pan, over a medium heat, brown the beef (and onions) until browned. Drain off the grease.

2. Cook the noodles according to the package directions.

3. Mix the pizza sauce and soup together in the frying pan with the ground beef.

4. In an oven proof dish, combine the drained noodles and beef mixture. Stir in 1.5 cups of the mozzarella and most of the pepperoni, along with any other pizza toppings you want to add.

5. Cover the top of the mixture with the remaining pepperoni and the remaining cheese.

6. Bake at 180C (350F) for 25-30 minutes, until the cheese is melted and golden and the casserole is heated through.

*I'm still getting used to US food lingo and I am not entirely sure what "noodles" refers too but I am quite sure it's not the Asian kind (the only kind here!) so I used pasta.

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