Baked Ziti

But the noodles are different.

Baked ziti is a bit less of a hassle.

Baked ziti is made with ziti pasta and a mixture of ingredients prepared as a casserole. Lasagne is made with flat pasta and layered with other ingredients.

FAT WHORES REJOICE thread

Ziti are noodles. Lasagne are flat layers.

Ingredient-wise, yes, they are similar. Lasagne often has meat, spinach, etc. but they are both usually tomato sauce, two cheeses and pasta.

As others have said, they are different noodles-- I'm not a pasta freak (I'm still a fat whore, though), but the thousand different shapes of pasta appear to be mostly about surface area and how a particular shape makes best use of the sauce it is in.

Lasagna is more popular because there is more cheese. The shape is such that you're all but guaranteed to have plenty of every ingredient in your serving. Ziti is usually mixed with whatever sauce, poured in the pan, and topped with cheese, where lasagna is a thin layer of sauce, noodles, ricotta, mozzarella, sauce, noodles, ricotta, mozzarella,, sauce, etc., lastly to be topped with cheese again before going in the oven.

Obviously, since most here are Americans, I'm talking about the typical American preparation, give or take, and not some officially certified Napoli method, nor Albanian grandma method, nor weird Midwestern aberration where mother always added a can of unrinsed peas and carrots (I just made that up).

Where do stuffed shells fit in? (I just saw a great recipe for them on Cook's Country.)

Can one of you please explain baked spaghetti. I don't understand it. It's just spaghetti.

Tubular pasta al forno is good. Different texture.

Baked ziti is way easier and cheaper, especially to serve to a lot of people.

The difference is, lasagne is more of a landfill, whereas baked ziti is a sluice.

More of a lazier cousin, op, which is why it's often referred to as "lazy lasagna".

Baked ziti (pasta al forno) is a simpler, faster dish than lasagne, but it also has a different flavor. One of biggest differences is the blend of ricotta cheese into a portion of the tomato sauce, and the use of different types of mozzarella. The recipe below is fantastic.

Manicotti is the best of the baked pastas. The thing with baked pasta dishes is to fat whore it up and use whole milk ricotta as opposed to part skim because the part skim dries it out and tastes like shit.

Mangia!

All I know is that "ziti" is a very useful word in Scrabble and Words with Friends.

Pasta baked in the oven has all sorts of variations in Italian cooking. With or without tomato sauce, with sausage or meat sauce, with ricotta or white sauce, with all different types of cheese. And different cuts of pasta.

You're more apt to see baked pasta "ai formaggi" in Italy. Italian mac and cheese.

That looks good R17

Pastitsio?

I think everybody knows we're talking about different pasta / noodle shapes. I didn't grow up eating baked ziti. My guess would be that lasagne was more elegant, baked ziti more rustic and homey. Baked ziti seems like it would be less trouble to make.

I used to eat baked ziti at Sbarro when I was a teenager.

Maccheroni pasticciati is my fave.

'Ziti' is plural for 'zitu,' the Sicilian word for fiancé or bridegroom. Ziti pasta was traditionally served as the first course at Sicilian wedding feasts. Baked ziti is an Italian-American invention.

Lasagna uses a bechemel while baked ziti uses ricotta

LOVE IT.....YUMMERS!!!

Baked Ziti always reminds me of Carmella trying to fuck the priest on The Sopranos.

I was going to make the Sopranos reference, but R27 beat me to it!

It's definitely less mainstream in the US than lasagne.

But how exactly is the ziti drained before being baked?

Isn't most Italian food like a thousand variations with a hundred different pastas and twenty sauces?

Ziti drainer.

Instead of ziti, I make baked cavatappi. Instead of mozzarella and ricotta, I use bolognese and besciamella, making it more like the way I make lasagne.

My partner and I like this recipe we found. We use it when I make Giada De Laurentiis's marinara sauce and we have a lot left over. The ziti is a great way to use it up.

[quote]Isn't most Italian food like a thousand variations with a hundred different pastas and twenty sauces?

Yes. There are many regional variations on similar themes.

Ziti > Lasagne

[quote]Baked ziti is an Italian-American invention.

Not true.

I'd rather have lasagna, or stuffed cannelloni, or stuffed shells. I know baked ziti is less work, and I can appreciate a simple recipe, but if I'm baking pasta, it's going to be layered or stuffed with cheese, and all sorts of other delicious things.

R9, baked spaghetti is SO much better than ordinary spaghetti. Everyone knows that baking tomato sauces results in greater depth of flavor. Plus, with baked spaghetti, you toss the cooked noodles with your choice of butter or olive oil plus cream cheese or shredded parmesan. Place them in a baking dish, top with your own spaghetti sauce (with or without meat), top with shredded parmesan and mozzarella, and bake till it is heated through and theese has browned. Slice and serve.

It is so much more delicious than typical spaghetti. Can also be cut into squares, wrapped and frozen for future meals, too.

The Cook's Country stuffed shells recipe I saw on TV did something interesting: it used uncooked shells, filled them with a piping bag, positioned them filling side up in the baking dish, added extra water to the sauce, covered the dish with foil and baked. The shells cooked in the sauce, and filling them when they're raw is so much easier than trying to fill a slippery, cooked shell. (Sort of like no-boil lasagna noodles vs. regular ones.)

Mmmm, I miss manicotti, but that was a bitch for my mother to make with those individual crepe like sleeves she had to cook up. I can’t see anyone doing it as a regular meal anymore, maybe for a special occasion.

All you need to know.

My baked ziti is the BEST!

R39 reminded me of this lasagna recipe for slow cooker fans:

I know it's done all the time, but I used to be afraid to do pasta of any kind in the slow cooker. Years ago, my manager's wife shared this link with me. This one is made with regular uncooked pasta (not the "oven ready"), and calls for the sauce to be mixed with just a bit of water.

I made it as written, and it turned out PERFECTLY. The top even got golden and the edges a bit crusty, though one would obviously have more of that in an oven-baked lasagna.

The next time, I added sautéed garlic, mushrooms, onions & peppers, making sure the final mixture didn't have much in the way of excess liquid, and that was also excellent. I highly recommend this recipe.

R36, perhaps, but several sites claim that baked ziti is an Italian-American dish. It is likely just a slight modification of the classic pasticcio, which gave the Greeks their famous pastitsio dish.

R44 That site is wrong.

Baked ziti is authentically Italian.

Italians make all sorts of pasta baked in the oven and ziti is one of them.

[quote]besciamella

Isn't it balsamella?

Bechamel.

In Italian.

"Balsamella" o "besciamella"? Each is correct.

I never encountered ziti until I lived in Connecticut, coming from the Midwest. Manicotti and lasagne were much more familiar, as well as cavatelli. Lasagne is more elegant than Ziti, as well as more versatile.

OP, you got me craving baked ziti.

R14 I clicked on the link for the recipe and stayed for the hot guy

Ziti has the texture of unflavoured licourice. I do not understand its existence.

Quite a gourmet at R53

What is the best recipe for it?

[quote] Isn't most Italian food like a thousand variations with a hundred different pastas and twenty sauces?

Like Mexican food is meat, beans, and tortillas.

Zit is basically a pasta bake. I had it once in Catania years ago. As far as I can see, the ziti pasta has straight ends, compared to penne with quill ends. Apart from that, it's just a pasta bake or if you wanna be posh Ziti Al Forno.

Lasagna is sheet pasta, so a bit more complex to assemble.

Looks delicious.

There used to be a restaurant where I lived that had the BEST cavatelli with broccoli. They don’t have cavatelli where I live. Now I want cavatelli.

[quote]Isn't most Italian food like a thousand variations with a hundred different pastas and twenty sauces?

No.

Italian cuisine is huge. Pasta is only a small part of it.

Americans think of pasta as a meal. Italians think of pasta as a first course.

Let's face it. Lasagna and Ziti is basically Man 'n Cheese with red sauce and meat.

I love Man 'n Cheese.

I love uncut guys too.

Katie Lee made this baked pasta dish on "The Kitchen." Looked really good (if you like eggplant.) It's sort of a baked version of Pasta Alla Norma.

[quote]I don't get it.

I have no doubt that this statement is true :-)

R60 is right.

The Italians make nice pizza too. 😀