9 Easy Baked Pasta Recipes

With so much of our time taken up by work, carpools, and extra activities, we are always on the hunt for easy weeknight meals. But so you don't get stuck with the same dishes set on repeat throughout the week, the Cook editors at The Daily Meal want to introduce new quick and easy recipes for your rotation. Pasta bakes are a weeknight essential. They incorporate meats, vegetables, and cheese, which make them hearty and satisfying. And the best part is that they are even more delicious as leftovers when the flavors have additional time to meld.

Click here for the 9 Easy Baked Pasta Recipes (Slideshow)

With the simplicity and deliciousness that baked pasta recipes offer, this week we put the Culinary Content Network and our staff to the test to come up with tasty baked pasta recipes that are anything but ordinary. Here are some of the highlights:

• The Creole Contessa shared with us her recipe for baked macaroni and cheese with shrimp, which of course, was infused with bold Creole flavor. The Creole Contessa is a member of the Culinary Content Network.

• Rebecca Turchan of A Dusting of Sugar baked her pasta with butternut squash and bacon and it's sure to be a new family favorite. Turchan is a member of the Culinary Content Network.

• The winner this week is Elsa Säätelä, the Travel editor at The Daily Meal who is originally from Finland. She shared with us a classic Finnish baked pasta recipe that we can all enjoy.

All of the recipes featured can be made at home for about $20 or less, excluding the cost of small amounts of basic ingredients such as butter, oil, flour, sugar, salt, pepper, and other dried herbs and spices.

Emily Jacobs is the Recipe editor at The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter @EmilyRecipes.