The reason for the huge serving size is that I developed this vegetarian baked ziti recipe for a Cub Scout potluck dinner.
| Prep Time: | 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 2 hrs |
| Servings: | 24 |
| Yield: | 24 servings |
Ingredients
- 2 (16 ounce) packages ziti
- 1 (16 ounce) jar spaghetti sauce
- 1 (15 ounce) container ricotta cheese
- 1 (6 ounce) package baby spinach leaves
- 1 pound ready-peeled baby carrots
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 small zucchini, diced
- 1 (6 ounce) package portobello mushroom caps, diced
- 1 (8 ounce) package button mushrooms, diced
- 1 ½ tablespoons minced garlic
- 1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
- 2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
- 1 (8 ounce) package shredded Italian cheese blend
- 3 (16 ounce) jars spaghetti sauce
- 2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
- salt and ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
- Fill a large pot with lightly salted water and bring to a rolling boil over high heat. Once the water is boiling, stir in the ziti, and return to a boil. Cook the pasta uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the pasta has cooked through, but is still firm to the bite, about 8 minutes. Drain well in a colander set in the sink. Rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process. Transfer to a large roasting pan.
- Whisk together 1 jar of spaghetti sauce and the ricotta cheese in a large bowl. Add to the pasta and stir.
- Place the spinach in the bowl of a food processor; blend until finely chopped; remove and set aside. Then place the carrots in the food processor and process until finely chopped.
- Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the chopped carrots in the hot oil until they begin to soften, about 2 minutes. Stir in the zucchini, portobello mushrooms, button mushrooms, and garlic; cook and stir until the zucchini is soft, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the chopped spinach, tomatoes, and 2 tablespoons Italian seasoning; drain. Add to the ziti and mix. Sprinkle about 1/2 the bag of the Italian cheese blend over the pasta and stir through. Pour in the 3 remaining jars of spaghetti sauce; stir until the pasta and vegetables are evenly coated. Season with 2 tablespoons Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper; mix. Cover the pan with aluminum foil.
- Bake in the preheated oven until completely heated through, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Remove the foil and sprinkle the remaining cheese over the dish. Return dish to oven and bake until the cheese melts and begins to brown, about 10 minutes more.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 303 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 46 g |
| Cholesterol | 14 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 5 g |
| Protein | 12 g |
| Saturated Fat | 3 g |
| Sodium | 474 mg |
| Sugars | 9 g |
| Fat | 8 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Good recipe
Delicious! This dish has big flavor, despite the seeming lack of spices in the ingredients list. I did cut back on the Italian seasoning by about half, and added more pepper and a healthy pinch of salt instead. To get that “bite”, i topped the dish with ~1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese in the last ten minutes, along with the recommended half bag of Italian cheese. It was divine!
My wife is a vegetarian and so is my 2 year old son so I found this baked ziti recipe to try and liked that it was healthier than just your typical baked ziti with just sauce & cheese. Here is what I changed- I halfed the pasta just one box (and use Barilla’s protein plus penne) , omitted the carrots, added 1 onion, doubled the garlic, Instead of using Italian seasoning, I added 3 tablespoon fresh basil & 1 teaspoon oregano. doubled the ricotta cheese, added I cup shaved parmesan cheese on top. I used regular mozzarella instead of Italian cheese blend. ( I don’t know how 2 boxes of pasta would’ve fit it barely all fir in the baking dish as it was with one box.) I ended up sautéing the veggies longer so I only had to bake it for 45 min. I thought 1 1/2 hours seemed to long anyways. The family loved it! It was a big hit!
This was good! I did make a few changes, reduced the recipe to 3 servings as it’s just 2 of us. I ended up using a 26oz jar of pasta sauce which is more than the recipe calls for, but we really like our pasta saucy. I also added a little more ricotta cheese, just because! Sautéed onions and cooked those with the carrots. I also added more onion powder, garlic powder, basil and oregano because the pasta sauce I had on hand was a little bland. Do not over boil the noodles, I was busy prepping other things that I didn’t take it out of the boiling water right away and my noodles were too tender!
I thought it was fairly bland.
Could you use any more dishes is this recipe?? Load a full dishwasher after dinner… That aside, maybe I’m not made for vegetarianism, because this was.only okay. Certainly not something I’ll try again. It needed more cheese, and I did do this scaled down to 12 serving.
This is so good! I split my final product (pre-baking) into two casserole dishes. This way i was able to take one to a party, and save one for another day! I just threw it in the fridge and it baked up beautifully two days later. It might even taste a little better too, because all the flavors have had a chance to mingle together. This is such an awesome recipe! Everyone asked me for my secret… haha
Very good pasta dish even after tweaking the amounts to a reasonable serving size. I will probably work on it a little more, but will definitely have it again!
I made this as a smaller dish and it came out great. I didn’t have mushrooms, so I increased the other veggies. Used homemade spaghetti sauce. I will make this again and possibly add more seasoning.