Cheesy Baked Polenta in Tomato Sauce Recipe (2024)

Skip to #4 and just buy polenta already in tube form.

I pour out polenta to cool in a parchment lined sheet pan. It's much easier and less fussy than the roll up hot goop method. When cool cut into squares, or if you must, circles with a cookie cutter. Any leftover scraps are easily reconstituted in a sauce pan over medium heat with mashing, stirring motion.

Canned vs fresh tomatoesI find that out of prime local fresh tomato season (11 months out of 12), good canned tomatoes (San Marzano certainly) are much better than fresh ones. They are simply richer tasting. San Marzano tomatoes are one of the great canned goods. Somewhat like apricots : good quality nectar is always better than the fresh fruit. Can't remember tasting a good fresh apricot. Maybe if you live in apricot country....

@Denis: Jacques Pepin agrees with you on the virtues of canned tomatoes. However, you don't have to seek out San Marzanos: store-brand tomatoes, with a little sugar (as in this recipe) and, for those who don't believe it will kill them, 1/4 tsp MSG for 28 oz tomatoes, will do equally well. (Glutamate makes tomatoes savory.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marzano_tomato notes that Roma tomatoes, popularized by the USDA, were originally bred from San Marzano stock.

My preferred method is to pour the polenta into a glass loaf pan and chill, then turn it out and slice. I cut the squares in half, into attractive triangles. You can also use a cookie cutter to press out other shapes. So much easier than rolling up hot mush in paper.

I live in apricot country (the hot eastern edge of the SF Bay Area) and have a Blenheim apricot tree in my back yard. It's 40 years old and has only a couple of major limbs remaining due to brown rot, but it was covered with blossoms earlier this month and will provide us another beautiful crop this summer. They taste sublime but travel very poorly, which is why you haven't had a good one. As will all fruits, the backyard varieties are infinitely better than the commercial ones.

Polenta is known as grits where I live. Same exact thing. We southerners giggle when people denounce grits but rave about polenta. Old fashioned traditional stoneground grits is much better than quick-grits and should be cooked for at least 30 minutes for creaminess. BTW, the name "grits" originated with the British who were introduced by Native Americans to ground corn porridge. The word is a derivation of "grist" as in "grist mills".

Add a side of rave sauteed with garlic and olive oil and you have a delicious meal, though I will use yellow cornmeal which becomes finished polenta in 20 minutes as far as I'm concerned.

I've been making something similar to this for years, but this looks like a great upgrade. I recommend adding sauteed mushrooms and/or Italian sausage too.

Ahhh, spell check. That should be rabe, rappini, whatever you want to call it.

I was wondering the same thing. I found an article by America's Test Kitchen that tried cooking highly acidic foods like tomato sauce in a cast iron pan, and they found that if you cook it for any longer than 30 minutes, you'll start to detect a metallic taste and it can damage the seasoning on the pan. So for this recipe, I'd go with an ovenproof pan that is not cast iron.

My family has been making a variation of this polenta recipe which has been passed on to least 4 generations. Our version is much simpler...make a pot of polenta...pour half into a baking dish, place thin slices of fontina and add remaining polenta on top of cheese layer. Laddie whatever sauce (tomato/herbs, butter/sage etc) has been prepared over polenta and bake until sauce bubbling and cheese melted.

I'm surprised you make the sauce in a cast iron pan. I thought it was sacrilege to cook acidic foods in cast iron lest they ruin the pan's seasoning.

Grits a/k/a polenta tastes wonderfully creamy when cooked in half milk and half water. Complete it by stirring in a little heavy cream.

Why trim an inch off each end of the rolled polenta???

If you have leftover polenta, as I did, this is a quick and easy weeknight recipe. My polenta wasn’t as pretty as in the photo but it came together quickly. I used what I had on hand - crushed tomatoes and little mozzarella balls cut in half. A great dish for a cold winter night.

Delicious. I didn’t have instant polenta, so went the old school way. Having made it once, I think polenta in a tube would be nearly as good. I followed advice in the comments and spread the polenta on a baking sheet, then popped it in the freezer while I made the sauce. I used a cup to cut out circles. The sauce was quite spicy and I skimped a bit on the red pepper. Next time I will serve that separately, because I am not brave about heat!

I made the sauce more substantial by adding a pound of bulk chicken Italian sausage. I cooked the sausage first, set it aside until the sauce was done, then stirred it in. I also used tube polenta out of sheer laziness. I followed the rest of the recipe exactly. We loved it. Even picky spouse declared it "a keeper."

I bake the polenta at 350 on a rimmed baking pan (wet ingredients about 1/4 deep) for about 30 to 40 minutes. Cooled it can be used as lasagna noodles too. I season the polenta with herbs and sometimes with a couple of tablespoons of sauce (gravy in my Italian house).

Amazing recipe, the polenta bit was perfection and I had a large block of Fontina to use so added a bit extra! Also to up the protein and nutrition as a full meal I added some shiitake mushrooms and beluga lentils to the tomato sauce. Served with a green leaf salad and the Parmesan sprinkle is fantastic!

Added in chipotle peppers chopped as per Amy's suggestion (sorta) and it made the dish much more interesting and did indeed cut through the otherwise bland flavors!

Made this again tonight. I highly recommend either replacing or mixing half and half this tomato sauce with the smoky tomato sauce in Ottolenghi’s NYTimes recipe for tagliatelle and chickpeas. The combination is divine and the chipotle cuts through the richness of all the dairy in this recipe.

Delicious, although somewhat insubstantial. Next time, I would bolster the tomato sauce with additional vegetables and/or legumes.

Made this tonight with garden picked San Marzano tomatoes, phooey on canned being better. Doubled the sauce recipe, gave it a few seconds with the immersion blender and it was divine. Never tried instant polenta, felt a little Nona guilt but got over it.The balance of the sauce will get a second showing in Jamie Oliver’s eggplant Parmesan tomorrow night. The eggplant will be fresh from the garden too. Fresh veggies are a reason to love hot summers in Sacramento.

As is, this recipe has the prospect of its flavor not quite living up to its good looks. I sautéed a bunch of chopped greens and added those to the tomato sauce with some Great Northern beans I had cooked in chicken broth. I prepped the greens while the polenta cooked “pot-in-pot” in my Instant Pot (hands-free and so easy). This recipe provided ideas for future improvisations, but I probably won’t bother trying to shape polenta this way again.

If you use instant polenta, the recipe amount is about half the called for liquid. However, if you don’t realize this until your food is cooking and you are furiously adding a little liquid at a time, you’ll have a firm polenta ready to turn out and roll up easily in the parchment paper.

This turned out great , I made these changes as others suggested: Polenta poured into a parchment lined pan, cut into squares then triangles , I don't use instant polenta, 1 cup organic polenta to 4 cups water used the listed adds. On the sauce , added 4 sliced mushrooms, half a red bell pepper diced and 2 T of tomato pasted instead of sugar.

Veganized this recipe and it was wonderfully delcious. Used almond milk in place of cow milk. Added 2 fresh tomatoes, celery and red pepper to sauce . Did not use parmesan . Should have use nutritional instead. For melting I used vegan sliced cheddar becuse it was all I had . Served it with side of garlic stir fried rapini

I added a bag of frozen (thawed and drained) spinach to the sauce to add some nutrition and served it with link sausage on the side and really enjoyed the flavors and textures. Definitely use Fontina because it adds a tang that fresh mozzarella doesn't have.

This was good, but will cut 1/4 olive oil in the sauce to 2 tablespoons next time We had to skim off about 2 tablespoons of oil before it could be served.