Easy Baked Ziti Recipe With Ricotta

The Easiest Baked Ziti

I am always looking for easy meals that I can put together in under 30 minutes. This baked ziti can also be prepared ahead of time and placed in the refrigerator and reheated for 15 minutes before serving!

I know I might not be in the majority, but I dont love all that cheese that go in traditional baked ziti.

You know what Im talking about, soft cheese, like ricotta? And by the way, I am Italian too.

I absolutely do no like it and I never will. I hate the soft, gushy texture and everything else that goes with it.

If you are looking for some other healthier comfort food recipes, you should try this Slow Cooker Thai Chicken Soup, One Dish Salsa Pasta Chicken Bake, Cheesy Pesto Stuffed Chicken Breasts or this Zucchini Ravioli. These would all taste delicious with some Spiked Apple Cider too!

How To Freeze Baked Ziti

Choose a freezer-safe dish, such as a glass, metal, or foil pan. Pour the cooked baked ziti into the pan and sprinkle with cheese. Then, cover the pan with a layer of plastic wrap, followed by a layer of aluminum foil.

The dish can be safely stored in the freezer for up to two months. I recommend taping a date and reheating instructions to the foil.

Find Fire Roasted Tomatoes For Best Flavor

This baked ziti uses a combination of purchased marinara sauce and homemade flavors to make a quick homemade sauce. The key? Canned fire roasted tomatoes. Heres what to know about this variety:

• Fire roasted tomatoes are a type of canned tomato thats roasted over a flame before canning. Theyre sold by several different brands look for them in the canned tomato section in your local grocery. We like Muir Glen.
• Fire roasted tomatoes taste sweet right out of the can. This means you can cook them for less time than standard tomatoes.
• Whats a substitute for fire roasted tomatoes? Use the highest quality canned tomatoes you can find. Consider adding 1 teaspoon sugar and a hint of smoked paprika if you have it to round out the flavors.

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This Baked Ziti With Ricotta Is Perfect Comfort Food Make This Simple Pasta Recipe For An Easy Weeknight Dinner For The Family

Can we all agree that an easy pasta dinner recipe is just the best? This baked pasta recipe from start to finish will be ready to eat in just 30 minutes of time. For my family, thats huge! When the kids are hungry, theyre hungry now and oftentimes I find myself looking for a recipe that I can get on the table quickly.

Once they hear that this Baked Ziti is on the menu, theyre happy to wait just a few more minutes of time. What I love about this yummy pasta dish is that its cheesy and loaded with flavor plus, its great for leftovers, too!

Pro Tips For Baked Ziti With Ground Beef

• Adding a bit of sugar to your ricotta mixture sweetens it up a bit. It plays perfectly against the robust flavors of this baked ziti casserole.
• No one likes shredding cheese by hand. Feel free to grab a brick of mozzarella cheese and slice by hand instead of shredding.
• Add a bit of crushed red pepper flakes to your sauce to add a bit of a spicy kick.
• This recipe balances the perfect amount of sauce to pasta ratio. However, if you like a super saucy Italian casserole, feel free to add more sauce than the recommended amount suggested.
• Grab a spaghetti sauce that also has Italian sausage in it for double the flavor.

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The Perfect Freezer Meal

I have to add that because this is such a tasty, easy to make dinner, this is my go-to recipe whenever I make a meal for someone in need. Whether its a family with a new baby or a friend recovering from surgery, this pasta dish is always well received. I will even bring two of these sometimes one frozen version and a baked one so they have two meals at their disposal!

This baked ziti with ricotta also works well as a freezer meal. I will often double, or triple the recipe when I make this for my own family too, particularly if ground beef is on sale.

Should you freeze baked ziti before or after baking?

Baked ziti, just like any pasta casserole, should be frozen after you assemble the dish but before baking. So, layer the dish as described in the recipe card below, then instead of putting it in the oven, put it in the freezer. Easy peasy!

Can I Add More Cheese

Uh, absolutely! Add several cheeses and make five cheese ziti al forno. Who says you have to go out to enjoy a decadent Italian inspired cuisine? Similar to baked ziti with ricotta, this will knock your socks off with a savory blend of five different cheeses and a textured topping to blend it all together. You wont believe your taste buds!

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How Long To Bake Baked Ziti

Baking times can vary based on your oven, but for this recipe, Chef Aston uses a double-baking method. First, he covers the baking dish with foil and bakes for 30 minutes at 350F degrees, then he removes the foil and lets the top crisp up until it’s golden, cheesy and bubbly for another 25-30 minutes.

How To Make Baked Ziti

Baked ziti is super easy to make but there a few steps.. they are easy steps, I promise.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and lightly spray a 9 x 13 pan with nonstick spray.

Start with the ziti pasta. Boil a large pot of salted water and cook the pasta until its almost al dente. Drain the pasta 1-2 minutes before the recommended time is done and set aside.

While your pasta is cooking, brown your ground beef in a large skillet over medium-high heat until no longer pink. Drain the fat and set the meat aside.

Using the same skillet, melt butter and add chopped onion. Stir and cook for 2-3 minutes.

Add minced garlic and cook for 1 minute before stirring in spaghetti sauce, onion powder, salt and Italian seasoning. Reduce heat and let simmer.

In a small bowl, combine ricotta cheese, egg, sugar and 1/2 of the Parmesan cheese. Add a pinch of salt too.

Add the ground beef and ziti noodles into the spaghetti sauce and stir well to combine.

Pour half of the ziti / sauce mixture into the prepared pan and then drop spoonfuls of ricotta cheese on top.

Gently spread the ricotta over the pasta to create an even layer.

Sprinkle half of the mozzarella cheese on top before adding the remaining pasta and spreading even.

Add the remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheese to the top of the baked ziti casserole.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

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Can You Freeze This

Absolutely, you can freeze this baked ziti with ricotta. Simply prepare as directed and cool to room temperature. Then wrap and freeze accordingly. I often make a double batch and freeze one of them for a ready-made meal during the busy week. You can also freeze your baked ziti in single-serve portions that are easy to pull out a couple at a time. It makes great afterschool snacks for teenagers and even better weekend lunches for the busy family!

Making The Sauce With Italian Sausage

If you want to keep things totally simple and vegetarian here, you can make a sauce with canned tomatoes, some aromatics, and some cream. Baking ziti in the oven gives you plenty of textural and flavor contrast in the form of crisp browned bits along the top edges of the baking dish. Skillet baked ziti doesn’t have this advantage, so I like to up the flavor and texture by starting my sauce with some Italian sausage that I cook in a mixture of olive oil and butter just until its pink color goes away.

Next I add my aromatics: onions and garlic, cooked until soft and fragrant, followed by some dried oregano and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Finally, I add a mixture of crushed canned whole peeled tomatoes , heavy cream, and a touch of chicken stock or water.

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Do You Put Egg In Baked Ziti

Combine cooked ziti, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, egg, and 1 1/2 cups spaghetti sauce in a medium bowl transfer into the prepared baking dish. Top with remaining spaghetti sauce, then sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes let stand for 15 minutes before serving.

Recipe Notes And Tips

• Cook the pasta al dente. If you overcook it, the casserole will become soggy when it is baked.
• You can easily add in some extra vegetables like carrots or mushrooms if you like. Just soften them in a skillet before mixing with the pasta and baking.
• The ground beef can be substituted with ground turkey, chicken, pork or bison.
• Let the ricotta baked ziti cool before storing the leftovers.

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Why You Should Make This Easy Baked Ziti

This ziti is so easy, mainly because it only uses shredded mozzarella for cheese. Oh and maybe some grated Parmesan for topping, but thats it.

I have never liked any soft cheeses EVER. But ricotta and cottage cheese are on the top of my list for cheese I despise.

Maybe its the lumps? Of course it has to be the lumps

I make this all the time for my family and prepare it ahead of time and place it in the refrigerator until its ready to cook. It doesnt get much easier than this.

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What Is Ziti Pasta

Ziti is a hollow pasta in the shape of a smooth tube, sort of like a short straw. It originated in Campagna, Italy, or perhaps Sicily, Italy. Its name means bride or bridegroom, although the stories of why the Italians gave this pasta the name for those getting married can vary. In some parts of Italy, it’s served at weddings.

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How To Keep Baked Ziti From Drying Out

Four key culprits to a dried out ziti are:

• there is not enough sauce,
• the noodles arent cooked until JUST AL DENTE and overcook while baking,
• the noodles arent thoroughly and evenly coated with sauce, or
• the edges of the noodles are exposed and subject to drying out.

When I say the pasta should be cooked until al dente what I mean by that is the pasta should be cooked for about 6 minutes. The pasta has gotten softER, but it still has a bite.

If the pasta is cooked fully it can easily overcook while baking becoming mushy. If it is UNDERCOOKED, it will continue to cook while baking, soaking up the sauce, resulting in a dried out ziti.

Cook the pasta in salted water over a SLOW BOIL. Violently boiling pasta noodles will break them down. A lot of bubbles on top of the water doesnt allow for proper ventilation of the steam underneath, which results in a frothy foam on top.

Why We Love Baked Ziti

Rich, zesty, cheesy and best of all, its easy!

• Baked ziti with ricotta is an easy twist on a classic lasagna recipe.
• Instead of long lasagna noodles, we use ziti pasta and bake it with meat sauce and lots of cheese.
• It rivals any restaurant pasta for less cost and it has heaps of flavor!
• Adding Italian sausage to this ziti recipe makes a quick sauce taste like its been cooking for hours!
• This ziti dish is perfect to make ahead and it reheats and freezes well. Cook once and enjoy for days!

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What I Love About Baked Ziti With Ricotta Recipe

I love that this baked ziti with ricotta is so simple to make even though it tastes like a million bucks! With an easy 20-minute prep time, you can still get it in the oven for a family meal even on a busy schedule. The recipe is also flexible, so its easy to suit personal tastes and dietary restrictions.

It tastes just like grandma used to make in less than half the time! Here are some other reasons to fall in love with this recipe.

• Hearty and filling
• Robust meat sauce with garlic
• Easy 20-minute prep
• On the table in under an hour

How To Store Reheat And Freeze Ziti

You can assemble this ahead, and either refrigerate or freeze it before you do the final baking. If you freeze it, thaw it in the refrigerator overnight before baking. You can also freeze a baked ziti, and reheat it thawed or frozen.

• Refrigerating and then baking an assembled, unbaked ziti: Cover the assembled ziti with foil and refrigerate up to 24 hours. To bake, remove the foil and bake at 350°F until the top is lightly browned and the cheese is melted. Expect to add at least 15 more minutes baking time than if you had baked it right after assembling.
• Freezing and then baking an assembled, unbaked ziti: To bake frozen unbaked ziti, it’s best to thaw it in the refrigerator overnight. Take it out of the fridge 30 minutes before baking. Remove any plastic wrap. Bake, uncovered, 350°F until lightly browned and bubbly, 60 to 70 minutes. Cover with foil if the top browns before the inside is fully heated.
• Freezing and reheating a baked ziti: Bake, covered with foil, at 350°F. Reheat thawed or frozen the time will depend on the pan itself, and how frozen the lasagna is. Expect it to take at least 35 to 45 minutes, but check to see that it hits 165°F in the center.

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For A Quicker Cook Soak The Pasta First

Skillet pasta dishes are already shortcuts, but there aren’t any rules against taking cuts that cut your shortcuts even shorter, right?

There are a few tricks to making the best skillet-baked ziti. The first is to abandon the idea of cooking the ziti 100% from scratch in the pan. I find that even with the most carefully tested recipes, it’s really difficult to gauge exactly how much liquid that ziti is gonna absorb as it cooks in the panand starting with enough liquid to fully cook it makes for a dangerously loose mixture that’s a pain in the butt to stir without splashing sauce all over your countertop.

Instead, I employ the same method I use when making virtually any baked pasta dish: soaking the pasta while I prepare the sauce. If I place the pasta in a bowl of salted water, stir it once with my hands, then let it rest while I cook my sauce, it will have already absorbed virtually all of the liquid that it’s going to absorb by the time I’m ready to drain it and add it to the pot. At that point, all I have to do is cook it through in my finished sauce, a process that takes just moments. This method shaves at least 10 minutes off of our total time in the kitchen.

Do You Like Pasta Like Me

In my family, there is no person who doesnt like pasta, so I cook it almost every day. But when I first cooked this easy Baked Ziti recipe, I immediately fell in love with this extraordinary combination of ingredients.

I especially like the combination of cheeses in Baked Ziti. Ricotta, parmesan, and mozzarella what can be better if all of these cheeses are in one dish?

Baked Ziti Recipe

Try to cook this easy Baked Ziti recipe at home, it isnt as difficult as it might seem at first. This super-dish is cooked for about an hour, and it turns out to be very nourishing, piquant, tender, and yummy.

This recipe is perfect for homemade lunch or dinner as an independent dish. Baked Ziti is really nourishing, so a large party can be fed from the specified quantity of ingredients.

Im sure not many people have heard about the Baked Ziti, and if anyone has heard of it, they probably didnt cook it.

If you like lasagna, you will definitely like this easy Baked Ziti recipe. This is a completely different dish, but even tastier and easier. You can also cook it in advance and freeze it.

Feel free to experiment with any filling, cheese, and sauce, but we suggest you begin your experience with Baked Ziti with this Easy Baked Ziti recipe.

WHAT YOUll NEED TO MAKE BAKED ZITI RECIPE:

• 1 pound ziti pasta
• ½ tsp red pepper flakes
• 32 oz marinara sauce

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What You Need To Make This Recipe

Ziti pasta I highly recommend using ziti pasta as the tubular shape traps the meat, sauce, and cheese, so you get a bit of everything with every bite. If you do not have ziti, penne pasta will be a good substitute.

Ground Italian sausage if you cannot find ground sausage, you can make your own by removing the casing from Italian sausage. Feel free to get a sweet or spicy sausage.

use your favorite marinara sauce, I like to use Raos, or you can follow my spaghetti sauce recipe, which is perfect for this pasta dish.

Cheeses now is not the time to go light on cheese! Youll need three different kinds of cheese, parmesan, ricotta, and mozzarella, to make the pasta bake gooey and cheesy.

How To Make This Recipe

Step 1: Preheat the oven and cook and drain your pasta according to package directions.

Step 2: In a large bowl, mix all of the ricotta cheese with part mozzarella and part parmesan along with the eggs, garlic, parsley, and Italian seasoning. Stir well to combine. The remaining mozzarella and parmesan will be used as the top layer just before baking.

Step 3: In a 9×13 baking dish, add half of the sauce and spread evenly all around the dish. Add the cooked pasta to the cheese mixture make sure its all coated evenly. Then spread that pasta mixture over top the sauce in the baking dish and top with remaining sauce, then remaining cheeses.

Step 4: Bake in the oven until the sauce is bubbling and the cheese is melted and slightly brown. Remove and let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

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