This recipe is such a good one!! Most creamy pasta recipes that I make source the cream factor from heavy whipping cream but this one swaps that out for baked feta cheese!! It's such a good sub. I love using Athenos brand for feta cheese, it gets super creamy when you bake it which is PERFECT for pasta dishes!! 

This recipe is totes inspired by my bestie @grilledcheesesocial, linking her original recipe here! We made a similar version together a couple years ago and she is the viral queen for all things baked feta pasta!

Recipe makes enough for 3-4 serving sizes or 5-6 smaller side portions! (Most of my recipes call for 1/2 lb of pasta or 2 servings. If you want to make that amount, just use 1/2 lb of pasta and use a bit less of the pasta sauce. And actually, if you reserve some of it before you thin it out with pasta water, it makes a REALLY good dip!!)

This is a BIG batch of soup - like double the amount of my standard recipes. I would say it serves 8-10 people. I made it for a lot of friends and wanted extra on hand for my family throughout the week! If you want to cut it in half, to make a smaller batch for like 3-4 people, feel free!

I originally set out to create a butternut squash lasagna soup but I didn't really love it with lasagna noodles! That's why there's ricotta cheese involved here. I swapped out the lasagna noodles for tortellini and loved it way more!! I also added a ton of spinach leaves after I was done filming and that was a great addition too.

ONE MORE THING. The texture of the soup is very customizable and will vary depending on the size of the squash. I ate it as is, which was more on the thick side as far as soups go. I ended up adding broth to the rest of it that I shared with family members, it was more soupy and less saucy that way, if that makes sense. Since I was storing it in the fridge, I didn't want the tortellini to soak up all of the soup and thought more broth was a good idea! So definitely pay attention to the thickness and texture as you're going and adjust it (with more or less broth) to whatever you prefer!! 

I was looking at photos of this recipe that I made and photographed back in our first house in 2017 and realized that the recipe has never actually lived online!! It's always been written out in the Instagram post's caption! Sharing here to give it a more permanent and sharable home.

When I first made this recipe I was going for alfredo vibes. Since 2017 - I've learned that traditional alfredo components don't involve heavy cream lol, that's American alfredo! So call it what you want, but there are definitely alfredo vibes. The key to making the sauce super luscious is watering it down with pasta water and adding a pat of butter while mixing the pasta into it.

IMPORTANT:
Almost all of my recipes make enough for 2 large portions or 4 smaller side dishes of pasta, but since we're roasting an entire butternut squash here, this is a larger scale recipe. It makes enough sauce for 6-8 pasta dishes. (6 regular serving sizes and 8 on the smaller side.) So what I usually do, is I cut the squash/garlic/cream puree in half after it comes out of the blender. Before watering it down with salty pasta water and adding butter, it's essentially butternut squash soup, so I eat it that way as soup or save it to pour over another batch of pasta in a few days!

It's soup season!! I'm kicking off a recipe series where I turn my favorite pasta dishes into soups and this is the first one so there will be more where this came from!! This recipe makes enough for 4-5 people and is super good as leftovers for the next few days too!

This recipe is inspired by my creamy tortellini recipe - very similar situation, but with more broth! You could definitely add in some greens like kale or spinach - or some protein like chickpeas or Italian ground sausage or beef!!