4-Ingredient Baked Feta Pasta (The TikTok One, Correctly)
Photo: Julias Torten und Törtchen on Pexels
TikTok made this dish world-famous in 2020. The original recipe is correct in spirit — cherry tomatoes plus a whole feta block in a baking dish, roast, smash, toss with pasta — but the internet has since added seventeen "improvements" that ruin it. This is the stripped-down version. Four ingredients. Forty-five minutes, most of it the oven doing nothing. Nearly impossible to mess up.
What You Need
- 1 (8oz) block feta cheese
- 2 pints cherry tomatoes
- 12oz short pasta, penne, shells, or rigatoni
- 4 cloves garlic, smashed
How to Make It
- 1
Heat oven to 400°F. In a 9x13 baking dish, toss cherry tomatoes and smashed garlic with 1/3 cup olive oil and a heavy pinch of salt. Nest the feta block in the center.
- 2
Bake 35 minutes. The tomatoes should be collapsed and bursting; the feta should be soft and golden at the edges.
- 3
Meanwhile, boil pasta in heavily salted water to al dente. Reserve 1 cup pasta water before draining.
- 4
Pull the baking dish out. Smash everything together with a fork — the feta and tomatoes will turn into a creamy, orange sauce. Add drained pasta directly to the dish, toss, and loosen with pasta water until it coats every piece.
