Baked Ziti

I have been making this recipe for a while now because it is so easy and it feeds us for about a week with all the leftovers.

Inspiration: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Baked-Ziti-I/Detail.aspx

What you need:

1 lb dried ziti pasta (or any small tubular pasta like penne)
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 lb lean ground beef
2 (26 oz.) jars spaghetti sauce
6 oz. provolone cheese (I use the whole package which I think is like 8 oz.)
1 1/2 C sour cream
6 oz. mozzarella cheese, shredded
2 T grated parmesan cheese

Sometimes I just buy the Italian cheese blend and use that instead of the mozzarella and parmesan. I love the provolone though so you can't leave that out. I also buy the cheapest jars of spaghetti sauce and then add in whatever spices I feel like.


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a large skillet (I mean large large because it will have to hold all the sauce), brown onion, garlic, and ground beef over medium heat. I usually add salt and pepper and maybe some italian seasoning too. Drain the fat if needed. Add spaghetti sauce and simmer 15 minutes. I also usually throw in a little brown sugar if I remember because it is supposed to help the heart burn from the tomato sauce.

3. Meanwhile, cook pasta until al dente. Drain.

4. Grease a 9x13 in. baking dish. Or 2 smaller baking dishes if you want to freeze a portion of it. Layer as follows: 1/2 of the ziti, provolone cheese, sour cream, 1/2 sauce mixture, remaining ziti, mozzarella cheese and remaining sauce mixture. Top with parmesan cheese.

5. Bake for 30 minutes covered in the preheated oven, or until cheeses are melted.

I have played around a little with the layering because some of the reviews on allrecipes.com said the noodles would be dry on the bottom if they weren't mixed with a little sauce first. This is how I did it the first couple of times but now I follow the recipe. I saw Tyler Florence on Foodnetwork make his Ultimate Lasagna and he put plain noodles on the bottom so it would actually slice and hold it's shape in the end. So this is how I do it now.

I was going to take a picture of a peice of it so I could show the layer but I actually forgot the sour cream this time. Oops. The sour cream is a very important peice so we just mixed it in when we ate it but it didn't make for a good picture.