Grams Made Pizza Casserole

When Nick was in primary school, the class made cookbooks for Mother's Day gifts. As part of the assignment, each child listed their mom's favorite foods. This was not a problem for Nick. He only put two items on the list of my favorite foods ... pizza and chocolate. And may I say that he was spot on. Those are still my two favorite foods.

Grandad and Grams both love pizza. When we heard the story this week about the lady who was saved by her pizza delivery person, I thought to myself "that could be us." We used to order pizza every Thursday night. We would watch Survivor and eat pizza. We ordered the same pizza with such regularity that, on the rare week we didn't order, the pizza delivery guy would tell us the next week that he had been worried about us. We've given that up, although we do occasionally still order a pizza. We try to eat something a little healthier.

This week, when Thursday rolled around, I had my Thursday night pizza craving.  Then when I checked my computer I saw a recipe for an Italian casserole in my inbox. Both of these combined made me decide to come up with a recipe for a pizza flavored casserole.

Pizza Casserole

2 cups uncooked Rotelle pasta
½ pound mild Italian sausage
1 package sliced Pepperoni
1 package (8 ounces) Velveeta
2 cups grated Italian blend cheese
1 can sliced black olives
2 jars (8 ounces) pizza sauce
1 can sliced mushrooms

Cook pasta according to package directions.

Spray a 9” x 12” casserole dish with nonstick cooking spray and spread half of one jar of pizza sauce in the bottom of the pan.

While the pasta is cooking, remove sausage casing and brown the sausage in a skillet with a little olive oil. Add mushrooms in the last few minutes of browning. Drain.

Cube the Velveeta and cut half of the Pepperoni slices into quarters.

Drain pasta and return to pan. Stir in Velveeta, olives, sausage-mushroom mixture, the quartered Pepperoni, one cup of the grated cheese, and the rest of the pizza sauce.

Pour the pasta mixture into the casserole dish and top with remaining cheese. Spread the remaining slices of Pepperoni over the top like a pizza. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.

I used Pepperoni, Italian Sausage, mushrooms and black olives because those are our favorite pizza toppings. You can substitute your favorite toppings for any of these.  


This turned out to be so delicious that I'm definitely making it next time Our Little Princess visits.