This Easy Baked Ziti Recipe is a fabulous no-stress, no-fail dinner recipe that tastes great, looks beautiful, and couldn’t be simpler to throw together.
Hello, lovely friends, who feels like a little comfort food today?
(I do!)
What’s your go-to comfort food? Me? My go-to is pasta and cheese. Always and forever.
If it’s made with cheese and it’s made with pasta, it makes my heart smile. And today, my heart is grinning like a loon, because today I’ve got another cheese and pasta recipe for you, Baked Ziti!
And not just any Baked Ziti: super easy, super delish, made with SAUSAGE, crushed tomatoes, and just a hint of cream, Baked Ziti.
You’re going to love it.
And you’re going to love it for two reasons.
First, because this is an A++ pasta experience from beginning to end. You’ll feel like an absolute kitchen rockstar when you pull the Ziti out of the oven with the skillet sizzling and the cheese browned and beautiful.
And you’re going to feel like an even bigger rockstar when you try the first bite because this is some damn good Baked Ziti. Using Italian sausage instead of hamburger gives the dish tons of extra flavor, and a couple tablespoons of cream in the sauce add just a slightly creamy, rich base note that makes *such* a difference.
Reason two is that this is one of the easiest dinners you’ll ever make. Seriously, if you can open a can of tomatoes and operate a kitchen timer, you’ve got this with your eyes closed.
How to Make Baked Ziti
To make this Baked Ziti, all you have to do it cook some pasta, ziti if you’ve got it, penne or rigatoni if you don’t, farfalle or rotini if you’re feeling like a rebel. While that cooks, you’ll brown some sausage and then a bit of garlic and red pepper flakes.
In goes a can of crushed tomatoes and a bit of salt and pepper. You let that simmer for 15 minutes, stir in the cooked pasta, cream, Parmesan, and basil, top with mozzarella, and then bake.
10 minutes later you pull that beautiful, bubbly pan of ziti out of the oven.
Stop for a moment and appreciate the sizzle.
Then serve with a delicious veggie side (Butter and Garlic Green Beans or Oven-roasted Broccoli are, as always, HIGHLY recommended) and dig in.
Easy Baked Ziti Recipe Notes
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- As written, this recipe will make two huge servings or three smaller servings.
- If you don’t usually cook with/buy Italian sausage, you can generally find packages of it near the hamburger in the butcher department. To remove the casings, you can make a shallow slice down the sausage lengthwise and peel it off, or just squeeze the sausage until it bursts out the top or bottom and squeeze the meat into a bowl.
- If you don’t own an oven-safe skillet, you can make this in a regular skillet and transfer it to a baking dish before baking.
- If your oven-safe skillet doesn’t have a lid, you can cook the sauce uncovered. Just add 1/4 cup of water along with the tomatoes and add another tablespoon or two of liquid towards the end of the cooking time if it seems like too much liquid has evaporated. I also recommend using a splatter screen if you own one because the sauce will pop and make a bit of a mess on the stove top.
- This recipe calls for heavy cream. If you need some ideas to use up the leftovers, check out Monday’s post, What to Do With Leftover Heavy Cream.
Easy Baked Ziti Recipe (Dinner for Two)
Ingredients
Special Equipment
- Medium oven-safe skillet with a lid
Baked Ziti
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 4 ounces (about 1 1/3 cup) uncooked ziti penne, or rigatoni
- 1/2 pound Italian sausage mild or hot, casings removed
- 3 cloves garlic pressed or minced
- Pinch Red Pepper flakes
- 1 14-ounce can crushed tomatoes
- Salt and pepper
- 3 tablespoons heavy cream
- 1/4 cup (1oz) shredded Parmesan
- 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
- 3/4 cup (3oz) shredded mozzarella
Instructions
Start Pasta
- Preheat oven to 475°F.
- Bring a medium pot of lightly salted water to a boil and cook ziti according to package instructions until just barely al dente. Don’t overcook the pasta as it will become too soft after baking. Drain and set aside.
Sauce
- While your water boils and pasta cooks, in a medium, oven-safe skillet with a lid, heat oil over medium heat. Brown sausage, breaking it into crumbles as it cooks. If there is a lot of grease in the pan, drain sausage or use a paper towel to absorb some of the grease.
- Stir in garlic and red pepper flakes and cook for 30 seconds. Add tomatoes and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Turn heat up to medium-high and bring to a simmer. Once simmering, reduce heat to medium-low and cover. Simmer, covered, for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Stir in cooked pasta, cream, Parmesan, and basil. Add more salt and pepper to taste.
Bake
- Sprinkle mozzarella over the top and bake for 10 to 15 minutes until cheese is melted and bubbly. Serve and enjoy!
Dawn - Girl Heart Food says
Yes. Cheese + pasta. Can never go wrong. Love all the mozza in here. This, a glass of vino and some garlicy crusty bread and I’m one happy lady. Total yum! Happy (almost) Friday 🙂
Tracy says
Yeeees! You just described my perfect dinner. 😉
Christina says
Pinning! This recipe looks redonkuballs and I can’t wait to try it!
Tracy says
LOL! Thanks for pinning, Christina!!
Tracy Hanks says
Made it last night, I did some tweaking on it, as I do with most recipes ! I added mushrooms and a few other things. Great recipe to start with (my husband loved it ! ( we are not big eaters, so we have dinner tonight too) thank you. Love your recipes
Tracy says
Thanks, Tracy! So glad you both enjoyed it!!
Janna says
Excellent! I didn’t have crushed tomatoes. I used DICED and cooked the sausage and tomatoes for about 2 hours first to get nice and soft. Used Penne. Loved this recipe so much. Simple and delicious!
Tracy says
Thanks, Janna! So happy you enjoyed it and made the ingredients you had work for you!
teachermrw says
This was just “ok”, although my dad and brother liked it. And, I must say I have liked everything I have cooked from your blog, except this. A decent alternative to traditional baked ziti, but, I think it misses the mark in the flavor department.
Tracy says
Oh, that’s a bummer to hear! This one’s a particular favorite of mine. Glad you’ve enjoyed the other things you’ve tried though!
Addie says
This was awesome! Followed the recipe to a T and it turned out great. I was worried it wouldn’t be enough for two when I measured out the pasta, but it was just as outlined – two very hefty servings. Thanks 🙂
Tracy says
Yay! This is one of my favorites, so I’m so glad you enjoyed it!!
Sharron Frasier says
Can this dish be baked in a casserole dish?Sha
Tracy says
Absolutely! And if 475 is too hot for the casserole dish, you can lower the temp as needed. The cheese just won’t get quite as brown quite as fast. Hope you enjoy it!
Kaye D says
Well first of all YUM!! Second, I would call this 2 enormous helpings or dinner for 2 twice, LOL At least for us these days. I pretty much followed the recipe.. Hubby couldn’t find regular ground sweet Italian Sausage, so he brought links, no problem, but I used what amounted to half the package and it was an ounce or so more than was called for. I seldom have heavy cream in the house unless I’m making candy, so I used the same amount of evaporated milk. I was going to splash it with a little red wine, but I forgot that, LOL
Anyhow, we loved it and it made enough for us to have for dinner tomorrow night. Thanks!!
Tracy says
So glad you enjoyed it, Kaye, and that you got a couple of meals out of it!! Love the tip about using evaporated milk. That’s so handy for other people who don’t keep cream on hand!
Janet Barnicle says
OMG (Gosh)..I am so glad I found your recipe. Made it tonight (had all the ingredients which is a miracle in it self). It is so good. Leaves the best taste in your mouth. Already referred a friend to your site. I have enough left over for tomorrow. Thank you so much for sharing this awesome recipe.
Tracy says
I’m thrilled you enjoyed it, Janet!! And thank you for the free advertising! 😉
Tom says
Not quite “classic ziti” but a one skillet alternative for two that is very good. I made the following changes: about 4 oz ricotta cheese for the cream, Italian seasoning blend for the basil, and added chopped onion with the garlic. If you don’t have crushed tomatoes you could use commercial spaghetti sauce and cut out the seasonings.
Jasmine says
Made this tonight for my boyfriend and I, WONDERFUL! We only had meatballs, so we used that in place of the sausage.
Christie says
Amazing. My husband love it.
Tracy says
So happy to hear it, Christie!!
Lee Ann says
Made this for supper hubby doesn’t eat Italian sausage so made it with lean ground beef and only had half and half came out wonderfully will be making again thanks so much for the recipes for two.We are empty nesters now and it nice to have recipe without a weeks worth of left overs
Tracy says
So happy to hear it, Lee Ann!
Reilly Eileen Larcey says
Do you think I could make this ahead of time and then bake that night? We’re going on vacation and I was thinking of packing this premade in our cooler and then baking when we get there? Would that work?
Tracy says
That should work. I would cook the noodles slightly shy of al dente so they don’t get too soft in the oven and then cover the top with foil while it’s reheating. Uncover during the last 10 to 15 minutes.
Nunya says
Like a few others, I initially balked when I saw the small amount of pasta the recipe called for, but I trusted as they said that it worked out and was so happy to see that it did! My only complaint with the recipe is that I bought fully cooked sausage, so it made the casing super hard to remove. It ended up taking more time than I thought, so dinner was a little later than intended. There was enough seasoning between the sausage, tomatoes and garlic that I didn’t even add the salt & pepper that the recipe calls for. Overall, I would certainly make this again. I’m glad I found the website- I’ve ordered your cookbook and can’t wait to get it!