- Hey, I'm John Kanell.
And today on "Preppy Kitchen"
we're making a cheesy delicious Baked Ziti.
So let's get started.
First off,
grab an onion.
We're gonna give it a good chop.
This dish has almost no prep work,
so really, we're just gonna chop the onion,
and mince some garlic up really fast.
In the meantime,
you should also have grabbed a big skillet,
and large pot should be at the ready.
We're gonna do a couple things at the same time
so this dish comes together pretty quick.
My mom's from Mexico
but she used to make Baked Ziti all the time
when I was little.
It is one of those really easy weeknight meals
that you can make that feeds the whole family.
It's just totally delicious.
And you have all these comforting
cheesy tomato meat vibes
that just make for a good dinner.
You have a couple minutes of grace
before the onion hits your eyes.
So chop quickly,
my recipe calls for six cloves of garlic.
I'm using eight.
That's how it works.
Give them a smash.
I think we all know that there is like
an internal garlic multiplier we use at home.
So you read a recipe like, "Hmm.
four cloves of garlic.
I'll get 10.
One of the reason I love this dish
is it gives you tons of lasagna vibes
without all the works.
You get that tomato, the meat,
a lot of flavor, the cheese
but there's no layering involved.
It's like it comes together so quickly.
This is also one of those dishes
that this reheats really well
so you can make it the night before,
and then have leftovers happily.
Now in a large skillet,
we're gonna heat
two to three tablespoons of oil, right up.
Get that oil nice and hot.
You always wanna see a nice shimmer,
a play of light on the oil
before you add anything in
unless I tell you to do otherwise.
Well, every once in a while,
I'll say that.
Shimmer achieved.
I'm adding my onion right into the pan.
Woo.
Got a little extra hots.
So we had to get that shot for you,
but it was worth it.
So we're just gonna give this
a little bit of a mix.
Grab a wooden spoon.
We're just gonna mix this up.
We want things to be translucent and beautiful,
not burns.
This has a lot of cooking to do yet.
So you don't wanna singe anything.
If your cooktops running hot,
turn it down a little bit.
So it should be about five minutes
until these become almost translucent.
That's what you're looking for.
Got a couple pieces of onion on the counter
'cuz I was flicking it away,
but it was totally worth it.
That looks just about right.
Becoming translucent,
now I'm gonna add one pound of
ground Italian sausage in.
(sausage skittering)
If you want, you could definitely use
ground pork, chicken, turkey.
Anything's gonna work in this.
It is like an easy variable recipe.
Break it up with your spoon.
I'm also gonna add the garlic right into the pan.
Now I'm using my wooden spoon
just to keep breaking everything up.
I want this to be pretty uniformly brown,
get some flavor on there.
Back home where I grew up there was
this one Italian market,
and it had the best Italian sausage.
So people would come from like all around
just to go this little mom and pop store.
'cuz they made their sausage and it was so good.
I wish they ship.
Everyone is so lucky now to have various
specialized ingredients ready at your fingertips.
When I was a little kid,
and I wanted to make Tiramisu
because that's the kinda little kid I was,
my mom would have to like take me
over to an Italian or like an import store
they were called.
They had specialty items like Mascarpone.
Like, "Ooh."
Now you can get Mascarpone
at any supermarket.
That's amazing.
This is taking on some nice color.
You wanna make sure you don't see any pink bits.
I wanna cook all the meat right now
just to be safe.
What I'm using today is a pretty balanced
Italian sausage
but you could use like a real spicy one
if you wanna inject some more flavor
in there.
Really, you could take this recipe
wherever you want.
This is nice and brown up.
All the pink is gone.
So now we're gonna add our marinara sauce
in here.
Use a nice marinara sauce if you can.
You know something with a lot of flavor.
If you wanna make your own, go right ahead.
If you wanna see an easy marinara recipe
on the channel,
you let me know that too.
A lot of the recipes that I do
are from user suggestions.
So I'm really all just all ears.
Along with the marinara,
I'm adding about a tablespoon
of Italian seasoning.
Red pepper flakes.
It's your choice.
This is like what a lot of people would use.
Just like a quarter teaspoon.
I like a little bit more spice.
I'm also adding a can
of whole peeled tomatoes in.
You could use crushed tomatoes if you wanted.
(upbeat instrumental music)
We're also gonna add a little bit of salt,
and some freshly cracked ground pepper to taste.
The marinara that you use
all have different amounts of salt in them
so that's why we're gonna add the salt to taste.
Really testing this skillet to its limits..
Can I tell you,
this is what I was thinking earlier.
A large skillet and I was like,
"Hmm, a large skillet."
And I was like, "No, that's crazy."
That's too big.
Well, well, well. (chuckles)
A large skillet.
Or you could do this in a Dutch oven too
so there was like plenty of space.
But we're just gonna be careful.
Stir this together.
You can use your wooden spoon
to break the tomatoes up.
They will also continue to break up as it cooks.
Okay,.
This looks nice.
Reduce heat to medium, low.
And we're gonna let this simmer
for about half an hour to really thicken up,
and let those flavors meld together
in an amazing combination.
While that sauce is simmering,
we're gonna set our ovens three 350,
and grab a casserole dish
so we're ready to assemble.
It's time to grab a pot enough to boil
one pound of Ziti.
Fill it up with water and get some salt too.
There we go.
Onto heat right there.
Now we're gonna get this nice and hot.
Okay.
Add a good amount of salt in here.
(lid clanking)
Always salt your water well.
Nobody wants bland pasta and adding salt
to the water also changes
the boiling temperature.
So it's important.
It's about a teaspoon per quart.
So I added a little bit
over a tablespoon in mind.
I can hear my water.
It's just come to a boil.
That means it's time to add our pasta.
Baked Ziti.
A course has Ziti pasta,
but you could use Penne or Rigatoni.
A lot of these larger pasta
will work just fine in here.
But for the sake of tradition,
today, it is Ziti.
While my pasta is cooking,
I'm just gonna grate my Parmesan cheese.
This stuff is so good,
and you could definitely use
the pre-grated stuff,
but I just think it's better freshly grated.
I want about two thirds of a cup.
You could add a little bit more if you want.
Okay.
That looks just about right.
An angel cloud of Parmesan.
My pasta is at aldente.
You definitely want it to have some bite.
So to continue cooking with that oven time.
My glasses are all fogged up. (chuckles)
Look how thick and gorgeous this is.
Now, a lot of the water cooked off,
and all you have left is pure flavor.
Okay.
We're ready to add the pasta back into our pot,
and we're working quick
because we don't want the pasta
to start sticking.
Gonna add about two cups of the sauce
right into my pasta.
Stir it so the pasta's really well coated.
It's nice and hot still
so it's gonna just absorb a ton of flavor.
Spoon some of the sauce right onto the bottom
of your casserole dish.
Just enough to cover the bottom
so pasta doesn't stick really.
Add half of the pasta into the casserole dish.
Spread it into an even layer.
Spin half of the remaining sauce over the pasta.
There we go.
Get like a nice even layer of it.
So all the pasta has some delicious sauce.
Now we're gonna grab half of our Parmesan cheese,
sprinkle it all over.
Lots of flavor.
I'm gonna dot about half a cup or so
of this nice beautiful Ricotta on top.
Ricotta is one of my favorite things
to use in recipes.
My summer favorite is a grilled peach
with a honey Ricotta in there.
A little Balsamic vinegar,
aww, it is summer on a plate.
So good.
When summer rolls around again,
you let me know if you want to see
some like delicious grilling recipes outside,
out of the kitchen.
I'm also gonna add about
two cups of Mozzarella right now.
That's half of our Mozzarella.
More pasta.
I love these copper pots, but oh my gosh,
the handles are hotter than the sun.
Spread that out.
We're gonna add the remaining sauce
right over here.
Add the remaining Parmesan.
More Ricotta dotted over the top.
Last step, our Mozzarella.
Let's just adding a final blessing
of some Parmesan cheese over the top.
And this is ready to go
into the oven 350 for about 40 minutes
or until it's bubbling,
and ready to enjoy.
Out of the oven it's bubbling away.
Come listen to this.
(pasta sizzling)
Oh, it smells so good.
Cheesy tomato deliciousness.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Umm.
That is so good.
I mean, I love every bit of it,
but my favorite,
the star is the cheese in this.
It really just wraps everything together
in a delicious hug.
I hope you get a chance to make this recipe,
and if you like my videos,
check out my dinner playlist.