I'm Making Alan Alda's 3-Ingredient Pasta Bake From Now On—It's So Good

Alan Alda's pasta bake is so simple but tastes so good that my boyfriend and I almost ate the whole thing right out of the baking dish. High-quality canned tomatoes are the key to the recipe.

A split image of Alan Alda and a bowl of pasta in tomato sauce — Simply Recipes / Getty Images / Lauren Bair

Alan Alda's Pasta Bake rises like a glorious phoenix out of a few simple ingredients. It's also known as Maccheroni all’Ultima Moda 1841 alla Napoletana, which loosely translates to "stylish pasta like they did it in 1841-era Naples." Apparently, skipping the boiling water and tossing dried pasta with EVOO was all over the runways.

I watched Alan Alda as Hawkeye on "M*A*S*H" back in the '80s. Well, more accurately, I watched Alan in the opening credits because it was time for bed when "M*A*S*H" came on after "Little House on the Prairie." He was handsome and calm and good at… helicopters? (I didn't see much of the show.) Anyway, Alan learned to make this dish decades ago in Italy, where he fondly recalled cooking and drinking wine all morning—a.k.a, my dream life. He's been making it ever since.

Overhead shot of ingredients for Alan Alda's baked pasta — Simply Recipes / Lauren Bair

How To Make Alan Alda's Pasta Bake

Until we can hop on a PJ to the Mediterranean, join me as I pop a Bota Box in my Hollywood apartment, crank up the Frank Sinatra, and hit us in the eye with a big pizza pie. Rich and tangy tomatoes, plus grassy olive oil you can taste, and umami-packed Parmigiano? Get out of here. My boyfriend and I both had to put our hands up and back away before we ate the entire thing straight out of the casserole dish.

This isn't technically Alan's recipe; It's Giuliano Bugialli's from Classic Techniques of Italian Cooking. But I love how, when you make a recipe long enough, it's "yours," which you keep passing on with variations on the theme. Let's make Alan's Giuliano's pasta.

Alan suggests using imported Italian pasta and tomatoes. With plenty of options at the store, good canned tomatoes can be even tastier than fresh ones since they're preserved at peak ripeness. Or, that's what I told myself as I loaded up my basket. I used mezzi rigatoni, which is rigatoni but shorter (and cuter).

Overhead shot of a baking dish with a pasta in tomato sauce — Simply Recipes / Lauren Bair

Toss your dried pasta with 3/4 cup of olive oil and let it rest for 20 minutes like you're coating it in Hawaiian Tropic for the oven. Use a really big bowl for the noods; You'll be stirring three 28-ounce cans of tomatoes (and juices) in there, too. For seasoning, I added a tablespoon of salt and 20 cranks of the peppermill (I also ran out of pepper at that point. C'est la vie).

The recipe calls for a 14-inch baking dish, but my 13x9-inch dish worked just fine for stirring throughout the bake. After 45 minutes, sprinkle your Parm on top and give it a final toss. Then, "Serve immediately without adding extra cheese." (Is this humanly possible? A typo?) Since extra cheese is living, I added a little bowl of Parm—on the side, out of respect to Alan and also Italy—just in case.

It's so delicious as-is, the cheese truly is optional. The pasta soaks up all of the tomato flavor, and it's so easy to make since it largely cooks hands-off.