Pastitsio

Pastitsio is a traditional Greek dish, made with layers of pasta, ground meat, tomatoes, and bechamel sauce. It’s sometimes referred to as “Greek lasagna” because of the similar layers in an Italian lasagna. What makes this dish special are the traditional spices used in the Greek meat sauce. This authentic recipe is incredibly flavorful, and a rich, hearty dish that I guarantee you’ll be making for years to come!

One of my favorite places I’ve ever been in the world is Greece. I went to Santorini and Crete on my honeymoon and can’t wait to go back again. The people, the culture and the food are absolutely phenomenal! Even before going to Greece, I was obsessed with Greek food. The feta, the flavors, the flaky puff pastry, I love it all!

One of my husbands favorite dishes of all time is pastitsio. Before we went to Greece, he would request that his Mom make it every time that we visit his parents in Arizona. Before this trip, I had never made it myself, but always enjoyed eating it at his parents house, and at the annual Greek festival in San Diego.

After trying Greek pastitsio in Greece, I knew that I had to come home and perfect my own recipe! After testing this recipe several times, I am so excited to share the perfect pastitsio recipe with you. I took tips from my mother-in-law’s recipe, and incorporated the flavors of the pastitsio that we tasted in Greece.

This dish is a show-stopper! Much like Italian lasagna, it takes some time to put all of the layers together, but once they come together, it’s a sensation of flavors. Pastitsio is the ultimate Greek comfort food, and is sure to make you fall in love with the flavors of Greek cooking!

Ingredients

• Pastitsio pasta – there is a particular pasta they use to make pastitsio in Greece. The label will usually read pastitsio or “pastichio” pasta. It’s basically thick spaghetti with a hole running through it. I found some at a local Mediterannean market in San Diego. You can also order pastitsio pasta online, or use Italian bucatini pasta instead. This pasta is very similar, just not as thick as pastitsio pasta. You can usually find bucatini at most major grocery stores. If you can’t find either, you can replace the pastitsio pasta with ziti, spaghetti or penne pasta. It won’t change the flavor, just the look of the final dish.
• Eggs – for this recipe, you’ll divide the egg whites and yolks, but use both in the recipe. The whites are tossed with the pasta to help bind the pasta together. The yolks are used to make the rich, creamy bechamel sauce.
• Feta cheese – would it even be a Greek recipe without feta? The cheese is crumbled and tossed with the pasta to add another level of flavor to this layer of the pastitsio.
• Olive oil – if you can find a Greek olive oil, even better! I found the olive oil pictured above at the same Mediterranean market where I purchased the pastitsio pasta.
• Red onion – while it’s most common to find red onions in Greek cooking, you can also use a yellow onion in this recipe.
• Garlic – I recommend fresh minced cloves for the best flavor.
• Ground beef – you can also use ground lamb, as it’s a common meat in Greek cooking. Or you could use a combination of half ground beef and half ground lamb.
• Cinnamon + ground cloves – the signature spices used to season the tomato and meat sauce.
• Salt + black pepper – also used to season the tomato and meat sauce.
• Red wine – I recommend a cabernet or pinot noir. Both pair well with either beef or lamb in the meat sauce.
• Beef broth
• Roma tomatoes – these firm tomatoes have a low-moisture content, making them perfect for cooking down into the meat sauce, without making the sauce watery.
• Tomato sauce
• Butter – I like to use unsalted butter, then salt to taste. If using salted butter, reduce the salt added to the bechamel sauce by half.
• All-purpose flour
• Milk – I recommend using 2% or whole milk for rich, creamy bechamel sauce.
• Ground nutmeg – to season the bechamel sauce.
• Kefalotyri cheese – this is a salty, hard Greek cheese, made from sheep’s milk. I also found this at the Mediterranean market in San Diego, but if you don’t have any luck finding it at a store near you, I recommend substituting in fresh grated pecorino cheese, or parmesan cheese.

Instructions

Pastitsio is easy to make in five steps. You will start by preparing the pasta and meat sauce. Next, prepare the béchamel sauce. Assemble the pastitsio, then bake it in the oven.

I’ve included step by step photos below to make this pastitsio recipe easy to follow at home. For the full detailed recipe instructions and ingredient quantities, scroll to the recipe card at the bottom of this post.

Prepare the pasta

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil on the stove. Once boiling, add the pasta and cook according to the package directions, until al dente.
2. Drain the pasta and transfer it to a large bowl. Place the pasta in the refrigerator to chill.
3. Once the pasta is chilled, add egg whites and crumbled feta cheese to the bowl and toss to combine.
4. Transfer the pasta to a large casserole dish, that’s at least 3 inches deep. Try to arrange the noodles lengthwise in the baking dish, so when you cut the pastitsio, you have beautifully uniformed slices, with the pasta all going in one direction.

Prepare the meat sauce

1. Heat olive oil in a large skillet, or dutch oven, on the stove over medium-high heat. Add onions and cook for 4-5 minutes. Add garlic and cook for an additional minute.
2. Place the ground beef in the skillet. Cook and crumble for 7-8 minutes, or until the ground beef is brown. Drain any grease from the skillet, then place it back on the stove over medium-high heat. Season the beef with ground cinnamon, ground cloves, salt and pepper. Cook for 3-4 minutes.
3. Add red wine, beef broth, diced tomatoes and tomato sauce to the skillet.
4. Simmer for 5 minutes, then remove the meat sauce from the heat and set it aside to cool.

Make the bechamel sauce

1. Start by making a roux. Melt butter in a medium saucepan on the stove over medium heat. Once the butter melts, whisk in flour and cook for 1 minute, or until it turns into a paste.
2. Slowly pour the milk into the skillet, and stir while adding the milk. If the sauce starts to get lumpy, use a whisk to stir out any lumps.
3. Continue to stir the sauce over medium heat until it’s thickened, and coats the back of a spatula. This might take 10-15 minutes. You want the sauce thick, even thicker than a traditional bechamel sauce, so that it “sits” on top of the pastitsio, instead of dripping through into the other layers.
4. Once the sauce is thick and creamy, add ground nutmeg, salt and shredded Kefalotyri (or pecorino) cheese. Stir the cheese and spices into the sauce.
5. Remove the bechamel from the heat on the stove and let it cool for 5 minutes. Whisk the egg yolks into the bechamel sauce.

Assemble the pastitsio

1. Pour the cooled meat sauce over the pasta in the casserole dish.
2. Pour the creamy béchamel sauce over the meat sauce in the casserole dish.
3. Sprinkle more shredded Kefalotyri (or pecorino) cheese over the pastitsio.

Bake the pastitsio

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Place the assembled pastitsio in the oven. Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until the cheese on top is brown and bubbling.
3. Let the pastitsio cool for at least 15 minutes before slicing. This will allow you to cut nice looking slices without all of the hot ingredients falling apart as you slice into it. Optionally top with chopped fresh parsley before serving.

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.