Baked Ziti with Sausage is loaded with tasty Italian sausage, homemade sauce, and tender pasta—easy enough for a weeknight but good enough for a company dinner.
This cheesy Italian casserole is perfect for a comforting dinner during a cold evening.
🥣Ingredients
Italian sausage
Pasta—Penne, ziti, or similar
Aromatic—onion, garlic
Tomatoes—crushed
Mozzarella cheese—cube and shredded
Pantry ingredients—basil, salt, black pepper, oregano, sugar, crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
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Featured Comment from Rachel:
"This is one of my favorite pasta dishes. What an excellent recipe."
Italian sausage baked ziti is a wonderful Italian comfort food that sticks to your bones. Easy to make at home with an excellent homemade marinara sauce.
It is super easy with these step-by-step photo instructions. Quick enough for a weeknight dinner or a company meal.
This is a modified version of my chicken marinara sauce. Mixed with cooked pasta and some mozzarella, and topped with more mozzarella. Bake. Done.
👨🍳How to Make Baked Ziti with Sausage
Preheat oven to 375°. Start your pasta immediately and cook to al dente per the package instructions.
Chop one medium onion.
In a large pan, add one pound of Italian sausage and the chopped onion—brown over medium-high heat. About 10 minutes, and in the last few minutes, add 2-3 cloves of minced or crushed garlic.
Add 28 oz. crushed tomatoes, 2 teaspoon basil, ½ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional), ½ teaspoon oregano, and ¼ teaspoon sugar. Turn to low and simmer for a few minutes.
Cut 8 oz of mozzarella into ½ inch cubes.
Add the sauce to the pasta. Add the cubed mozzarella and 1 cup of shredded mozzarella. Mix well.
Add to a casserole pan and top with the remaining 1 cup of mozzarella. A 9×13 inch rectangular casserole pan is good, or a 12-inch round works well too.
Bake at 375° until golden brown—about 30 minutes and an internal temperature of 160°.
For more details, keep reading. See the Recipe Card below for complete instructions and to print.
⬇️How to make this a "for two" friendly recipe
When you look at the amounts of various ingredients, they are standard-sized packages at the market: crushed tomatoes, Italian sausage, cheeses, and pasta. You can make it smaller and have extra ingredients or bigger and freeze leftovers.
The full recipe makes about 8 servings in a 9 by 13 casserole pan. Make a half recipe for 4 servings, more "cooking for two" friendly, in a 6 by 9 pan.
- Use the recipe card and adjust the number of servings to 4.
- Use the amount of ingredients in the ingredient list, not the instructions—those do not adjust.
- Use a 6 by 9, 8-inch square, or 9-inch round dish.
- Cook until browning well and bubbly edges—about 25 minutes and 160° internal temperature.
Options and variations
You can easily make it lasagna-like with globs of ricotta cheese and a good sprinkle of grated Parmesan cheese. Mix ricotta: 1 cup (8 oz.) ricotta cheese with one egg white, ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese, ½ teaspoon dry parsley, and ½ teaspoon salt—do not over-mix.
This uses pork sausage, but turkey sausage and ground beef can be used.
Serving
Serve with a nice bread like Stand Mixer Peasant Bread or Julia Child's French Bread. Check out these other Italian recipes, like Crock Pot Baked Ziti, Crock Pot Chicken Baked Ziti, Chicken Baked Ziti, Italian Sausage Marinara Sauce, and Baked Meatballs.
❄️Storing leftovers
Baked ziti sealed in an airtight container is good refrigerated for 4 days and good frozen for 3-4 months. Reheat in the oven or microwave.
❓FAQs
Baked ziti is a classic Italian American comfort food baked casserole dish. It is made with macaroni and combined with tomato sauce and cheese. It may include meat, sausage, mushrooms, peppers, onions, etc.
No, almost any pasta will do. Cook to al dente per the particular pasta instructions. I use Penne, a slightly smaller noodle with an angle cut, instead of straight cut edges of ziti noodles.
The purist will insist it is not baked ziti without ziti pasta. But you and I can call it anything we want. Ziti pasta is harder to find for me, and I like smaller pasta. So use what you like.
Yes, but read the instructions. You don't save any work. Mine is so much better and cheaper. Most of the simmering of the sauce is done while the casserole is baking in the oven.
Yes. You can assemble and refrigerate for a day or freeze for 3 months. To cook the frozen casserole, it will be easier to thaw overnight in the refrigerator, but you can bake it frozen but be sure the internal temperature reaches 160°,
This recipe is listed in these categories. See them for more similar recipes.
Have you tried this recipe, or have a question? Join the community discussion in the comments.
📖 Recipe
Easy Baked Ziti with Italian Sausage
Ingredients
- 1 pound Italian sausage
- 1 onion - medium chopped
- 2-3 cloves garlic - crushed or minced
- 1 pound pasta - Penne, ziti, or similar
- 28 oz crushed tomatoes
- 2 teaspoons dry basil
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper - optional
- ½ teaspoon oregano
- ¼ teaspoon sugar
- 8 oz mozzarella - cubed ½ inch
- 8 oz mozzarella - shredded
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°. Start your pasta immediately and cook to al dente per the package instructions.
- Chop one medium onion.
- In a large pan, add one pound of Italian sausage and the chopped onion—Brown over medium-high heat. About 10 minutes, and in the last few minutes, add 2-3 cloves of minced or crushed garlic.
- Add 28 oz. crushed tomatoes, 2 teaspoon basil, ½ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional), ½ teaspoon oregano, and ¼ teaspoon sugar. Turn to low and simmer for a few minutes.
- Cut 8 oz of mozzarella into ½ inch cubes.
- Add the sauce to the pasta. Add the cubed mozzarella and 1 cup of shredded mozzarella. Mix well.
- Add to a casserole pan and top with the remaining 1 cup of mozzarella. A 9×13 inch rectangular casserole pan is good, or a 12-inch round works well too.
- Bake at 375° until golden brown—about 30 minutes and an internal temperature of 160°.
Your Own Private Notes
Recipe Notes
Pro Tips:
- The quality of your ingredients is everything in Italian cooking. If you use generic ingredients, you will have generic results.
- Cook the pasta to al dente per the package instructions. Do not overcook. It cooks more in the oven.
- A 9×13-inch rectangular casserole pan is good, or a 12 inch round works well too.
- You can cut down the size, but you will have leftover ingredients. The recommended amounts are standard packages.
- This is good refrigerated for 3-4 days and good frozen for 3-4 months.
To adjust the recipe size:
You may adjust the number of servings in this recipe card under servings. This does the math for the ingredients for you. BUT it does NOT adjust the text of the instructions. So you need to do that yourself.
Nutrition Estimate
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Editor's Note: Originally Published January 21, 2012. Updated with expanded options, refreshed photos, and a table of contents to help navigation.
Susan
The narrative says 1 tablespoon garlic but the recipe says 1 teaspoon. Please clarify! Thank you.
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
Hi Susan,
Welcome to the blog.
That is tablespoons. Thanks for the proofread. I have updated the amount to 2-3 cloves which is how I would term it now. This recipe will be rewritten soon with updated photos etc. The recipe stays the same.
Garlic is a bit to taste and with my wife, I would double the garlic to keep her happy.
Again thanks for the questions and sorry for the confusion.
Dan
Judy Uhl
I think I'll try this with ground beef. Do you think I could use my 2 qt round casserole?
DrDan
Hi Judy,
Yes to the ground beef but it may be a bit bland lacking the spices in the sausage.
The pan size is about 3 qt. So it won't fit. The pan I used was a 12 inch "everyday" pan which is about 3 qt. A full size casserole pan is also about 3 qt.
Hope that helps.
Dan
Rachel
This is one of my favorite pasta dishes. What an excellent recipe. This would go over very well with my family!
DrDan
This is a nice dish. I forget about it at times... I need to do it more.
Thanks for the note.
DrDan
smors14
Made this last night for myself and hubby - it was awesome and LOTS of leftovers :)
Doug DeFrees
Here's my blog post about my baked ziti dinner: https://sundaydinnerfortwo.blogspot.com/2012/02/whats-ziti-and-why-should-i-bake-it.html
Doug
Thanks, Dr. Dan. The upcoming post will be about tonight's dinner featuring your recipe.
Dr Dan
The casserole is 2.5 qt and about 1 1/2 inches deep. I like a lot of top surface area. Good luck with your new blog Sunday, dinner for two
Doug
What size casserole pan did you use?
Chris
There are some decent jarred sauces out there these days, it's not just Ragu and Prego anymore. That being said, I still prefer making my own too.