Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Made My First Baked Ziti

Came out pretty good. I should have made enough sauce so I had some left over to serve over it on the plate, though. Delicious, either way, however. I have lots of homemade sauce in the freezer I can heat up and serve on it.

I'd say you cooked it long enough....

Well, when I cooked it for the recommended time (30 minutes at 400), it wasn't browned on top, which is considered desirable. So I raised the rack another spot, raised the temp to 425, and put it back in for another 10 minutes. After that, the top was nice and browned like you see.

Looks like ya done good.

The key with baked pasta dishes is that you have to only half cook the pasta before you mix it with your other ingredients and put it in the oven. During the baking time it will absorb moisture from the sauce and cheese to finish cooking.

Add more sauce next time when you mix it all together.


Most zitis are painfully dry.

Yeah, I thought I added a good bit of sauce when mixing it up, but the half cooked pasta soaked it all up during the baking process. Like I said, though, I can always top it with sauce on the plate.

Looks good to me but I'm not a super tomato-saucy guy.

I use the Chef John recipe.

It uses jarred marinara...of course you could substitute your own...but it uses two jars and two cups of water.


It's good.

My Mother and Grandmother's always served a side of sauce regardless of what the "pasta" dish was. That said, ziti was never served.