Baked Ziti is an Italian casserole made with penne pasta, sauce, and topped with grated cheese, usually mozzarella or parmesan. This dish can be made in a vegetarian style or with meat. Popular meats to include are sausage or shrimp. It is beneficial to grill the meat thoroughly before baking the ziti dish to ensure it gets fully cooked.
Recipe Variations
The tomato sauce is the greatest opportunity to be creative with baked ziti. Bon Appetit recommends making the sauce with fresh tomatoes, pancetta, Italian sausage and braised pork shoulder. Creamier varieties are also common, including Emeril Lagasse's ziti, which includes mornay sauce and fennel.
Baked ziti can also be a very simple dish. Kraft Foods' baked ziti only has five ingredients: Ziti, Marinara Sauce with Ricotta, Mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. Whatever the ingredients, the cooked pasta can usually be easily mixed with the cheeses and vegetables and baked for 30-45 minutes.
Baked Ziti
Would you like to see baked ziti prepared by a real person rather than on some cooking show? This video takes you into a real kitchen to actually show you how it's done. With a running time of less than seven minutes, this clip has also been viewed more than 22,000 times! The host brings up several important tips that can be extremely helpful when preparing baked ziti. One of the tips is to never rinse your pasta. When you rinse your pasta after it's been drained, you're actually making your noodles less able to stick to the sauce after your dish is completely prepared.
References
Fast Facts
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In Italian, ziti means "bridegrooms"
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Original ziti noodles were 18 inches long
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Be creative! There's nothing wrong with deviating from the original recipe, especially if it makes for a dish that you and your family ends up enjoying even more
