Ground Beef Tomato Alfredo Garbage Casserole

Has anyone heard of garbage bread? If you haven't, garbage bread is a compilation of whatever you have laying around in your fridge that needs to be cooked up, thrown on top of rolled up pizza dough and baked. Even though the name may sound unappetizing, they really can be quite tasty! I love the concept, but I love pasta more than pizza, so I decided to start making some garbage casseroles.

I love to try new casserole recipes, but my go to always seems to be thrown together with whatever we have sitting around that needs to be cooked up! Since we're leaving for St. Kitts on Saturday for 7 days, I needed to clean out the fridge a bit. So I thought, "Hey, why don't I just throw all of this random stuff into a casserole dish and bake it up?" Sounds delicious, right? Well trust me, it was!

I rounded up a few jars of opened pasta sauce we had on the door of our fridge, some pasta, left over ground beef, shredded cheese, and a head of cauliflower and started out on this weeks casserole variation!

While the water for the pasta was coming to a boil, I cooked up the ground beef and chopped the cauliflower into small pieces. I threw the cauliflower directly into the pot with the pasta and cooked the two together. 

Once the pasta was cooked and drained, I added in both the creamy basil tomato sauce and the alfredo sauce, along with the beef and mozzarella cheese and mixed it all up. 

When I make casseroles, I try to make two at a time: one for now and one for later. The casserole for later goes directly into the freezer to be defrosted on a day when I don't feel like cooking!

The other casserole goes right into the oven at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes or until the cheese sprinkled on top is bubbly. 

And now you know how to make a garbage casserole! I like to keep the ratio 1 pasta, 1 meat, 1-2 cheeses, 1-2 sauces, and 1-2 vegetables but clearly this recipe can be mixed and matched to anyone's preferences.

Enjoy!

-Sarah