Today on The Stay At Home Chef
I'm showing you how to make the best baked ziti ever.
This baked ziti has a homemade meat sauce
and is topped with the most delicious ricotta cream cheese mixture.
You are going to love it.
We're gonna start out over on the stove with making our meat sauce.
Get 2 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil heating in a large pot over medium high heat,
add in 1 pound of lean ground beef, and we'll cook this until it's browned off,
which will take about 5 minutes.
Drain off any excess grease, and if you use a really lean ground beef
you probably won't have to drain any off.
Then you'll add in 1 white diced onion, and 8 ounces of sliced mushrooms.
And of course, if you are not a mushroom lover,
go ahead and feel free to leave those out.
Let these saute in the pan with the ground beef until the onions are soft,
the mushrooms are cooked and soft,
and the meat is fully cooked through.
After about 5-7 minutes, those should be nice and cooked.
Then we're gonna add in one 6 ounce can of tomato paste,
and about 5 cloves of minced garlic.
We're gonna let this toast for about 2 minutes.
Then we can pour in 28 ounces of crushed tomatoes, 15 ounces of tomato sauce,
which is pureed tomato, 1 tablespoon each of dried basil,
and dried oregano, about 1/2 teaspoon of salt,
and you can always add more to taste, and 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper.
Stir this all in and bring it to a simmer.
Once it's simmering,
reduce the heat to low and let it simmer until you're ready to assemble your baked ziti.
In the meantime,
cook 1 pound of ziti pasta according to the package directions.
Now I went ahead and popped a lid on my sauce so it doesn't splatter everywhere while it simmers.
Next we're gonna make our cheese topping while the pasta cooks.
The cheese mixture starts with 8 ounces softened cream cheese,
then you'll need about 8 ounces of whole milk ricotta cheese,
and last add in 1 cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese.
You'll mix this together.
Now if you're cream cheese isn't already softened, it may be difficult to do this with a rubber spatula,
so you could also use a hand mixer.
But with softened cream cheese, a rubber spatula should be just fine.
We'll set this aside, preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and lightly grease a 9x13 pan.
Then I think our pasta is ready, so we'll go ahead and drain that.
We'll pour the drained pasta in the 9x13 pan, and we'll ladle in our meat sauce,
get that going in with the pasta, give it a little toss to combine,
then you'll add on little clumps of the cheese,
and give it a second and the pasta will heat it up so you can spread it out.
Then you can kind of spread this out into an even layer.
Don't worry too much.
It doesn't have to be pretty.
You just want that cheese on top.
Then we're gonna bake this in a 350 degree oven
for about 20 minutes until the cheese on top is warm and bubbly.
Then that's it.
You are ready to eat.
You are going to love this baked ziti.
It is the best ever.
Thanks for watching.
You can find the full written recipe in the video description.
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