The Best Baked Ziti

[Music] hi everyone welcome back to another episode of dinner with danielle here on kosher comm today's very basic dinner recipe is really thanks to my mother who taught me that baked ziti although basic is so delicious it was I think growing up a Tuesday night special in our house it was something that we all looked forward to because it was crispy boozy cheesy gooey comforting and delicious most big CDs in my opinion are good but they can be great instead of using something like a cottage cheese or Pam we're gonna use ricotta cheese which is just gonna elevate your baked ziti to like low levels and instead of using Pam we're gonna use butter because butter makes everything better that by the way did not come from my mother who is anti butter but I'm not anti butter so we're going full force today [Music] [Applause] [Music] the first thing you want to do is get a pot of water boiling we are going to season the water with salt that is the only way to season your pasta once your pastas cooked you can season around it but it's too late strap in the pasta and right away you want to give the pasta a good mix that's gonna prevent it from sticking you don't need to put any oil in the water or anything like that just mix it for a minute right when you put it in and then you could leave it to do its thing now [Music] while the pasta is boiling we're gonna assemble everything we need for the baked ziti it's very very simple don't blink because you'll miss it the first thing we're gonna do is take a stick of butter and we're just gonna butter our dish that's gonna prevent the tomato sauce from sticking to the bottom and burning and help the baked ziti come out really easily so you just want to butter all the sides and now we're gonna build the sauce for the baked ziti we have two cans of tomato sauce now if you want to use marinara sauce you can but I don't I just like to control the flavors of what's going in my food and with marinara sauce that's already seasoned it's a little bit more difficult to we're gonna season our tomato sauce with salt freshly ground black pepper and this is totally optional but I really like it some crushed red pepper flakes it adds a little bit of heat and just makes it the mozzarella cheese that's gonna give it really good stringiness you know that cheese pull that you want to see when you take a piece of big CD that's gonna give you that effect and for creaminess ricotta cheese not cottage cheese we're gonna stir this all together get it nice and incorporated and we have one more ingredient to go in here I warned you guys we are going to take a few tablespoons of butter cube the pieces and just wrap them right in when we add the hot pasta and some of the pasta water the butter is gonna start to melt with the cheese into the tomato sauce and just make the most creamy delicious sauce you ever had you want to cook the pasta just till it's al dente because once we put it in the sauce and stick it in the oven it's gonna continue to soften so if you cook it till it's very soft it will be a little bit mushy when you eat it so you really want to make sure to get to that nice al dente point where your pasta still has a little bit of chewiness we are going to add a ladle of the pasta water and that is the secret here that will help keep everything together when you're serving it and thicken the mixture really really nicely and mix that in start melting the butter and the cheese are you seeing the stringiness and now we're going to go ahead and add our pasta right to the sauce okay we're gonna mix this all up get that tomato sauce everywhere help some of it go into those little tubes of pasta mmm so good you can use any tubular pasta that you want for this it doesn't have to be penne or ZD whatever works for you whatever you have in your cabinet I'll tell you the truth if I have bow ties in my cabinet I use that okay look at that stringy creamy goodness that still has tomato flavor that is why we use ricotta cheese I'm not anti cottage cheese I just feel like it's better served with fruit you really want to take the extra minute here and give it love and you just mix it all and get all that goodness everywhere okay we're gonna smooth out the top get it nice and flat but not too flat cuz those little edges that stick out and get crispy those are goals time to make it rain make sure to get lots of cheese in those corners because those cheesy crispy corners that you leave behind when you serve your kids those are for you now this is good this can go into the oven but we're not done we're gonna take the extra step we're gonna take a little bit more butter if I lost you already just leave out the butter you could stick it in the oven but if you trust me hopefully by now you do you'll take the extra second to take a few pieces of butter and just dot it over the top the butter is gonna melt into the cheese and create an easy deep golden brown crusty cheesy tap the stuff they dream about we're gonna pop this baby into a 350 degree oven for 40 to 45 minutes and then dinner is served once your big CD is hot and bubbly and crispy and your house smells so good you can't take it anymore you know it's ready take it out let it sit on your counter for a few minutes just to cool in so that everything can tighten and then serve away in my house we fight over the corner pieces are you seeing that are you seeing that crunchy goodness all over there that's amazing that is what you want in a good big CD yes this one right here on the edge that's for me it's so satisfying a good big CD is so satisfying because the big CD is so rich and heavy I like to serve it with a really bright fresh salad and that is where our vinaigrette building block comes into life I have a little arugula here which goes really well with the big CD because it's a little peppery so it also helps cut through some of that I'm gonna drizzle some of our vinaigrette right on top and boom you have the most delicious dinner that took no time at all and will satisfy your whole family to get all the info on this fig CD and for more delicious recipes go check out kosher comm thanks for joining us everyone see you next time [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music]