So you know sometimes you just really want a quick Italian dinner, and not the 4-5 hour epic adventure of making gnocchi. That’s when you need to make baked ziti because you can knock that one out in like an hour, less actually; and the recipe is super flexible. The recipe my family uses is a little different than other ones I’ve seen; for one thing it’s meatless, so if you friends over or family members who don’t eat meat it’s kinda perfect. Also we only use ricotta and mozzarella cheeses instead of provolone and Parmesan cheese.

So this is the basic recipe, but it’s easy to double it or half it; as I said, very flexible. The standard recipe is enough to feed 6-8 people.

Meat-less Baked Ziti

• 1Lb (dry) ziti pasta
• 1Lb ricotta cheese
• 8oz shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 – 24oz jars pasta sauce

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Boil pasta until just under-done (about 7-8 minutes) drain. Coat a 9×13″ pan with Crisco, then put a layer of pasta, top with sauce, then a layer of ricotta. Add another layer of pasta, another layer of sauce, and top with shredded mozzarella. Bake for 30 minutes.

Trust me, use Crisco to grease your pan. If you try to do it with liquid vegetable oil you’re going to be scrubbing cheese off your pan for like 3 days.