- 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.
