Baked Ziti

April 12, 2012

Today, I am having a special guest post!!! My sister in law Lauren is sharing a very special family recipe and it just happens to be my husband’s favorite. Take it away Lauren!

When Meagan asked me to do a guest blog post, I was excited about the opportunity to share a family recipe with her (and you, her loyal readers)! My mom’s family, who was from New York originally, has a spaghetti sauce recipe that has been passed down for generations. Growing up, it was a family tradition to have baked ziti for Christmas.

I fondly remember helping my mom cook the sauce all day in preparation for our Christmas meal. Definitely a day in the kitchen well-spent. Because of the amount of time this recipe takes to prepare, it’s not one that you can whip up last minute, but hopefully you will find that the extra time is worth the reward. (Tip: I prefer to make a large batch of sauce and freeze the leftovers for a delicious meal in half the time!)
From our family to yours,
Lauren

Baked Ziti

Ingredients

28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
6 oz. can tomato paste
8 oz. can tomato sauce
1 tsp garlic
sweet basil to taste
oregano to taste
1 tsp sugar
salt to taste
2 cups of water
1 onion, diced
1 lb. Italian sausage links
12 oz. package meatballs
1 box 16oz. ziti
8 oz. mozzarella, cherry balls

Instructions

In large pot or saucepan on low heat add the first nine ingredients. In another sauce pan add the onions with a little bit of olive oil and sauté them for 5-7 minutes or until tender. Then add them to the larger pot.

Add the sausage and meatballs (only if they are uncooked) to the same pan that you just cooked the onions in and cook until they are lightly brown. Then add to the sauce mixture. The meat and sauce will cook 5-6 hours on low heat, stirring every 30 minutes to an hour.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Cook ziti according to package instructions and then drain. Coat a large casserole dish with cooking spray and then lay 1/2 of the noodles, 1/2 meat sauce, and half of the mozzarella. Then layer one more time then stir everything up. Bake covered in the oven 30-40 minutes.

Sprinkle with parmesan right before serving.

-Meagan

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Piter Freide says:

January 28, 2026 at 3:14 pm

This baked ziti is pure family magic, the same recipe where the sauce is cooked for 5-6 hours with sausages and meatballs, and then everything is layered with ziti and lots of mozzarella. I cooked it last weekend, standing at the stove all day, and the aroma spread throughout the apartment, lifting my spirits after a week of tight deadlines. That’s when I realized that I urgently needed to strengthen the development team, because I couldn’t do it alone. I turned to https://ncube.com/nearshore-software-development-europe — nearshore in Europe turned out to be ideal: the same time zones, English without any problems, top senior devs from Ukraine and Poland who quickly joined the project and took on some of the tasks. Now I have time not only for the sauce, but also for a normal life — the dish turned out great, and the team works like a well-oiled machine. I recommend it to anyone who loves comfort food and effective outsourcing.

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