Hawaiian Pizza Pasta
Your favorite Hawaiian pizza is turned into a quick and easy weeknight dinner with this Hawaiian Pizza Pasta with a homemade tomato sauce, chopped ham, pineapple, and mozzarella cheese.
As someone who cooks from scratch, I have a confession – I like to keep a frozen pizza or two on hand.
When I worked as a full time videographer, it was mainly because I would come home from a long day of work and not feel inspired to cook.
Now that switched to being full time recipe developer and photographer, it’s mainly because after a long day of developing recipes, shooting them, and doing more dishes in one day than the average person does in one week, soon my work day ends and dinner time begins with no break in between.
You’d think someone who works from home and cooks for a living would have a better handle on this, but I don’t.
My kitchen is small, so I only have one tiny counter space to prep. If it’s full of dirty dishes, I need to wash them before I can make anything else.
Sometimes I don’t wrap up my work day until 4:30-5:00 PM. To put this into perspective, imagine baking a cake and ice cream in the same day then having to wash all of those dishes at once – mixing bowls, beaters, saucepans, spoons, baking pans, more spoons (it’s almost ridiculous how many spoons I end up washing).
The funny part is I do have a dishwasher, but most of these items either get used too often or I want to wash by hand (never run your knives in the dishwasher if you want them to last).
When you’re done, you’re starving, you’ve been on your feet all day, and you have to dirty the dishes you just washed to make dinner.
Now I’m not complaining one bit as I love my job and would rather do ten mountains of dishes than work my old job; I wanted to explain my typical day as most people don’t understand what I do for a living.
Even the days where I spend most of my time on the computer writing and behind-the-scenes work, I somehow manage to rack up a bunch of dishes to wash.
If you ever want to do something nice for me, forget the flowers – wash my dishes for the day.
Because of this, I aim for quick weeknight dinner recipes – ones that can be prepped and cooked under 60 minutes.
I’m guessing you can also relate to this as you either worked a long day yourself or you’re a parent getting into your back to school routine.
Most of the time I’m pretty good at quick meals with pasta and tacos, but other times I cheat probably about twice a month with a frozen pizza.
One of my favorite pizzas is Hawaiian Pizza with ham and pineapple on top. However, frozen pizza can get quite expensive.
How can I still get my Hawaiian pizza fix without buying pizzas all the time? By taking those favorite flavors and turning it into stovetop Hawaiian Pizza Pasta.
The idea behind this pizza pasta is to still make it taste like Hawaiian Pizza without the pizza crust.
The homemade tomato sauce tastes like traditional pizza sauce. Then of course you add thinly sliced ham, pineapple, and mozzarella cheese.
I made it all on the stovetop so there’s no need to turn on the oven. Another win for pizza pasta when it’s hot outside.
Want to skip the pasta? Check out Hawaiian Pizza Chicken from Meal Prep On Fleek.
Make sure when you’re buying the pineapple, you buy the smaller tidbits and not chunks because you probably need to cut up the chunks into smaller pieces.
Lesson learned the first time I made this. If you’re feeling really ambitious, you can also buy fresh pineapple to chop up.
If you still find yourself with leftover ham, use it up in Ham and Cheese Soup, Baked Eggs with Ham and Cheese, or ham and cheese waffles.
Hawaiian Pizza Pasta
Your favorite Hawaiian pizza is turned into a quick and easy weeknight dinner with this Hawaiian Pizza Pasta with a homemade tomato sauce, chopped ham, pineapple, and mozzarella cheese.
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound (8 ounces or 1/2 box) uncooked rigatoni pasta
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 cup chopped onion
- 1 large garlic clove, minced
- 1/4 cup tomato paste
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried parsley
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- Crushed red pepper flakes, to taste (optional)
- 1 cup chopped ham
- 1 cup canned pineapple tidbits
- 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook rigatoni as directed on the package until al dente, about 10-12 minutes. Drain into a colander.
- Meanwhile, make the sauce. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil until hot. Add the onion and cook until they start to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 30 seconds.
- Add the tomato paste, broth, basil, oregano, parsley, sugar, salt, and red pepper flakes (if using). Stir until the tomato paste is smooth with the broth then bring to a boil.
- Once the pasta is done cooking, add the rigatoni, ham, and pineapple to the sauce. Stir until incorporated. Top with cheese and cover with lid. Cook until the cheese melts, about 3-5 minutes. Serve immediately.
More Quick Pasta Recipes
Creamy Tomato and Mushroom Pasta
Tomato, Spinach, and Goat Cheese Pasta
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Hawaiian pizza is awesome! What a fun idea for pasta.
The only thing that would make this recipe better is if I could make it in my electric skillet (when that’s my whole kitchen – with a microwave). Even though I’m retired, I hear you about having meals that are quickly and easily made. There are many days when I’m too tired to cook. So your quick and easy recipes are good for us old folks, too.
I’m guessing you mean because you have to boil the pasta separately? Barilla just released their Pronto pasta line, which means you can cook it right in your pan and not need to boil it separately. You will probably need to adjust my recipe and add more liquid as the pasta will absorb the liquid while cooking (hopefully the directions on the box can tell you more). I’m not sure if other brands have a no boil pasta like this, but it’s an idea to help you out.
my family loves hawaiian pizza, so I’m sure this will soon be a favorite pasta dish for us as well
You guess correctly, Carla. I did not know about the Pronto pasta. That’s something definitely worth checking into. I’ve got several recipes that use regular pasta that cooks with the rest of the meal, which has worked fine, but with this recipe I was concerned about making the sauce too watery. Given what you’ve said, I’ll just play with the recipe and see what happens. We’ll be heading back to the beach in a couple of weeks (that’s where I have only the skillet & microwave for a kitchen), and I’ll definitely check the grocery store there for the Pronto pasta. That store is much better than the one we have here at home. Thanks for you help.
I believe the Pronto line is new, so hopefully you can find it! Barilla is the only brand I know of that does this, but you can check and see what your store has available. Let me know if you go this route and if it works for you!
Will do!
I have never seen this before! But what a great idea!