Easy Baked Ziti
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This Easy Baked Ziti recipe is a simple, meatless, cheesy, classic Italian style meal. Baked Ziti tastes like lasagna, but is done in half the time! This is such an easy dinner to serve a crowd or for a simple weeknight family meal.
Looking for other simple pasta ideas? Check out my recipes for Creamy Tomato Sausage Pasta or One Pot Chicken Pasta Parmesan.
Baked ziti is one recipe I love to order whenever we go out to eat at an Italian restaurant. I know, it’s nothing too fancy, but I just can’t resist anything with melted, bubbly cheese and pasta. This recipe is perfect comfort food that is easy to make and everyone loves!
Pasta dishes go a long way, so if you’ve got family or friends to entertain, this is the perfect meal to serve. Add some warm french bread and a simple salad on the side to make this a simple meal.
Baked Ziti Ingredients
- Ziti– Ziti is a smooth, hollow, round pasta that is about 2 inches long. If you don’t have or can’t find ziti, you can substitute with something similar such as; rigatoni, penne or even rotini.
- Onion– yellow onion is the preference for this dish. Onion adds a lot of flavor to this dish.
- Garlic– a basic ingredient to any Italian dish. You can’t have too much garlic.
- Diced Tomatoes– these make up the delicious sauce for the pasta
- Tomato Sauce– used a thickener for the sauce as well as adding flavor.
- Italian Seasoning– dried Italian Seasoning adds flavor to the pasta sauce
- Ricotta Cheese– a classic ingredient for baked ziti. If you can find ricotta cheese, definitely use it in place of any substitutions. In the instance that you can’t find or don’t have ricotta cheese, I have used cottage cheese as a substitute. It will still melt and taste delicious in this recipe.
- Mozzarella Cheese– the cheese to use for any Italian dish. Melts perfectly and is not overpowering in flavor.
How to make Baked Ziti
- Get your oven heating up to 400ºF. While the oven is heating up, cook ziti pasta until it is al dente. You want it to still have a little bite/crunch in the center when you remove it from the water. Don’t cook the pasta all the way because it will continue to cook in the sauce.
- Make the sauce. In a large, 12 inch oven proof skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add in the diced onion and cook and stir 2-3 minutes until the onion is translucent. Add in the garlic and cook for an additional 30 seconds, until fragrant. Next, add in the Italian seasoning and stir.
- Pour in the cans of tomatoes and tomato sauce. Stir to combine. If you do not like the tomato pieces, at this point you can use a fork or potato masher to mash up the tomato chunks into smaller pieces, or even place in the blender. I like the tomatoes, so I leave them as they are from the cans.
- Stir to combine the tomatoes, sauce and cooked onions. Bring to a simmer and add in the cooked pasta.
- Add the cheeses. Top the combined ziti and sauce with the ricotta cheese. Drop by spoonfuls over the top of the pasta and spread out with the back of a spoon. Sprinkle the mozzarella cheese over the top of the ricotta.
- Bake the ziti. Place the prepared ziti in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, until the cheese is melted, bubbly and browned on top.
Easy Baked Ziti
Ingredients
- 1 pound ziti pasta
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 3 tbsp garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 2 14.oz cans diced tomatoes
- 1 14.5 oz can tomato sauce
- 32 oz Ricotta Cheese
- 2 cups mozzarella, shredded
- fresh basil, for topping
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400ºF
- Cook ziti in salted water until al dente, will still have a little crunch
- In a large, oven proof skillet. Heat olive oil over medium high heat. Cook onion for 2-3 minutes until translucent. Add in garlic and cook for 45 seconds until fragrant.
- Add in Italian seasoning, salt and pepper and stir.
- Pour in cans of tomatoes and tomato sauce.
- Pour cooked ziti into the sauce and stir to coat pasta.
- Top with ricotta cheese. Spread over the top of the pasta. Sprinkle mozzarella all over the top.
- Place in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, until the cheese is melted and golden brown on top.
Nutrition
This Easy Baked Ziti recipe is a simple, meatless, cheesy, classic Italian style meal. Baked Ziti tastes like lasagna, but is done in half the time! This is such an easy dinner to serve a crowd or for a simple weeknight family meal.
