Baked pasta is comfort food at its finest – you can’t go wrong with chicken parmesan pasta, pizza pasta, or this cheesy ziti. It’s sure to get rave reviews!
When I’m craving a hot, cheesy meal on a cold day, I turn to this classic baked ziti. It’s got layers of tender pasta, a super flavorful meat sauce, and plenty of melted cheese. It’s my go-to recipe for parties and potlucks, and everyone always comes back for seconds! This baked ziti is perfect with a fresh Italian salad, an antipasto platter or some fried ravioli. If you are feeding a crowd you could make them all for an amazing Italian meal!
How do you make baked ziti?
To make baked ziti, you need pasta, a creamy ricotta mixture and meaty marinara sauce. First make the sauce by cooking pieces of ground beef and Italian sausage in a pan with a little salt and pepper. While the meat is cooking, add chopped onion to the pan and cook it all until the meat is browned and the onion is translucent. Add garlic to the pan and briefly heat it before adding marinara sauce. Once everything simmers a bit, the sauce will be ready. While the sauce simmers, in a bowl mix together ricotta, parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese, an egg and seasoning. When the sauce is done, build the dish by layering in a baking pan the sauce, cooked ziti pasta, the ricotta mixture, more ziti, the sauce again and finally mozzarella cheese on top. After a quick bake in the oven, the dish will be ready to serve.
Tips for the perfect baked pasta
When you layer the pasta, make sure you have enough sauce to cover all the pasta. Covering the pasta in sauce helps it to cook evenly without drying out. The meat sauce can be made up to 2 days in advance. Sometimes I even make a double batch and freeze some for another night. I typically use 90% lean ground beef. It has plenty of flavor but is not overly greasy. This pasta can be assembled up to 2 hours before you plan to bake it. Store the pasta in a covered dish in the fridge until you’re ready to put it in the oven. Make sure to remove the sausage from the casings before placing the sausage in a pan to cook.
Baked ziti variations
You can easily customize this dish to add other flavors to the mix.
Meat: You can use all ground beef or all sausage instead of a combination of beef and sausage. Feel free to use ground turkey instead of beef. Always use 93% lean ground turkey instead of 99% lean ground turkey. Pasta: Feel free to use other pasta tube shapes instead of ziti, as sometimes it can be difficult to find. Penne pasta and rigatoni may be easier to find and also work well. Cheese: Try mixing the mozzarella with other cheeses that melt well such as fontina or provolone. Veggies: You can add your favorite vegetables to the sauce such as mushrooms, peppers, zucchini, spinach, olives or artichokes.
What is the difference between lasagna and baked ziti?
Baked ziti is lasagna’s informal cousin. Lasagna noodles are long and flat while ziti noodles are small tubes. The flavors are very similar, but instead of carefully layering lasagna noodles, ziti layers can be heaped in the baking pan. The ziti tubes also help pick up the sauce and cheeses.
What does ziti pasta look like?
Ziti pasta looks like small round tubes of pasta. They are smooth tubes cut flat and perpendicular to the tube instead of some pastas which are cut at an angle.
This recipe makes a meaty, cheesy baked pasta that is Italian comfort food at its finest. The tender ziti is the perfect way to carry all the hearty flavor of this dish from fork to mouth. Give this recipe a try, it will become one of your favorites!
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