Baked Ziti

Submitted by tootyflooty

"My Italian grandmother's recipe. You can use jarred sauce, or make your own. Either way, it's delicioso! Serve with a tossed salad and fresh Italian bread."

 

• Ready In: 50mins
• Ingredients: 10
• Serves: 12

ingredients

• 1 lb ziti pasta, dry
• 1 lb ground beef
• 15 ounces ricotta cheese
• 1⁄2 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1⁄4 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 3⁄4 teaspoon salt
• 1⁄4 teaspoon pepper
• 29 ounces pasta sauce (jarred, or homemade)
• 8 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded

directions

1. Boil pasta.
2. Drain and set aside.
3. Brown ground beef.
4. Drain and remove from heat.
5. Add ricotta, parmesan, parsley, egg, salt, pepper, and half of sauce to meat and mix well.
6. Add ziti and toss gently to coat.
7. Spoon mixture into a 13x9-inch baking pan.
8. Pour remaining sauce over pasta mixture.
9. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.
10. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, or until hot and bubbly.

Reviews

[moviebeth]

Made this without the meat for a work function and it was a hit! We have a couple vegetarians, so skipped the ground beef and it was still amazing! Definite keeper!

 

[embutterfly75]

Very easy to make and tasted really good. I like pasta with a lot of sauce, so to me this was kind of dry. I ended up adding extra sauce to each bowl when I served it.

 

[Rose is Rose]

I made two pans of this for my husband's evening meeting. The men absolutely loved it! I used the small tube pasta by Barilla. I think next time though, and this is strictly personal preference, I will cut the pasta in half and maybe use more sauce. I used a 32 ounce jar of sauce and it still seemed a bit dry to me. However, it was still quite good and the men thought they died and went to heaven!! Tootyflooty, thank you for the great recipe!

 

[annchase60]

We love this as much as lasagna and it goes much quicker when making it! Companied with some nice fresh Italian bread, it was a wonderful meal that will be repeated!

 

[Lynne the Pirate Queen]

Oh. My. Goodness! I had a bunch of things in my fridge that I wanted to use up, and found this recipe while searching for ideas. What a perfect choice I made for tonight's dinner! I made a few modifications: I used ground turkey, and only about half the amount of meat called for (I need to watch my protein intake); added 1/2 tablespoon minced garlic; omitted the parsley (didn't have any) and used dried basil instead. Instead of ziti, I used Trader Joe's fusilli with flax, and for sauce used Trader Joe's tomato-basil marinara. Fantastic! It smelled so good, we had a hard time waiting for it to finish baking! :P Perfect flavor and texture. Thanks for a recipe I'll be making again many times.