Meatball Baked Ziti
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Cheesy baked ziti with the easiest homemade meatballs. Quick to prepare and so so good. Comfort food at its best here!
Baked ziti. My all-time favorite kind of comfort food.
Except, I couldn’t just leave it like that. No, I couldn’t. I threw in some homemade meatballs and topped this entire bad boy with burrata cheese before baking it to absolute cheesy, melted perfection.
I personally prefer burrata here but if it’s not your jam, mozzarella would be a great substitute. And if you are short on time, you can absolutely substitute store-bought meatballs. (Side note: I highly recommend Trader Joe’s party size mini meatballs – they are so so good and a guilty pleasure of mine).
Serve with the remaining red wine, crusty bread, and a binge-worthy Netflix show. I recently finished Virgin River in 1.5 days and cannot wait for the second season!
Meatball Baked Ziti
Ingredients
- 1 pound ziti pasta
- ¾ pound ground beef
- ¾ pound ground pork
- ⅓ cup Panko
- 2 large egg yolks
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ teaspoon dried basil
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ⅓ cup dry red wine
- 1 (32-ounce) jar marinara sauce
- 3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
- 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
- 8 ounces burrata cheese, torn into large pieces
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly oil a 9 x 13 baking dish or coat with nonstick spray.
- In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta according to package instructions for al dente; drain well.
- In a large bowl, combine ground beef, ground pork, Panko, egg yolks, garlic, basil and oregano; season with 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Using a wooden spoon or clean hands, stir until well combined. Roll the mixture into 1-to-1-1/4-inch meatballs, forming about 24 meatballs.
- Heat olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium high heat. Add meatballs, in batches, and cook until all sides are browned, about 2-3 minutes. Return meatballs to the Dutch oven.
- Stir in wine, scraping any browned bits from the bottom of the Dutch oven.
- Stir in marinara sauce. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until flavors have blended, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in pasta, basil and parsley.
- Spread pasta mixture into the prepared baking dish; top with burrata.
- Place into oven and bake until bubbly, about 25-30 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes.
- Serve immediately.
Did you make this recipe?
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what are the directions if using frozen cooked meatballs?
Tried this for the first time tonight. It was a big hit with my spouse (aka taste tester). Modified it slightly with penne pasta and baked meatballs. It was delicious! Plan on making this for my daughter and her family!
Made 2 pans of this for a crowd and it was a huge hit with both adults and kids.
Any chance this can be made ahead and frozen? I need a make ahead pasta dish for Christmas but need to bring it frozen a few days prior to the dinner. If so please provide reheating directions. Thank you!
Did you end up freezing this dish? I would like to make it ahead and freeze as well and wondering how it turned out?
Haven’t trIed the meatball Ziti recipe yet, but I’m definitely planning on it – looks delicious!
And, BTW, I also binged Virgin River. My opinion: Virginia River is just lIke your meatball ziti: Very cheesy, but good!
Sooo tasty! I use either Prego Sensitive or Rao’s without garlic/onion and it still tastes fantastic. (Omitting the garlic from the meatballs too.)
I find that burrata is too expensive here ($11) so I’ll use some mascarpone and fresh mozzarella.
I also end up with way too many meatballs (like 60+) so I bake the extras and then have them for meatball subs or whatever.
This recipe is definitely in the rotation and is good enough for company!
Deliciously easy
Tried this recipe and it was delicious,definitely will be making again!
This dish was awesome – I missed that the fresh basil and fresh parsley were supposed to be added at the end and I added them along with the dry basil and dry oregano to the meatballs. The meatballs were perfect and I ended up adding more chopped fresh basil & parsley to the marinara mix (per the recipe). Also, based on other reviews, I added a jar and half of Raos marinara and I heated the second half of the second jar in a saucepan for those who want more sauce! I would definitely recommend using one and a half jars (32 oz each). It was delicious!!
OMG what a fabulous baked pasta dish! This was my first experience with burrata cheese and let me just say that I’m hooked! I used a combo of ground turkey and hot Italian turkey sausage for the meatballs and Rao’s sauce for the marinara (2 32 ounce bottles for $10.99 at Costco).
Fabulous recipe! My husband is still talking about it!
For the amount of work it took to make homemade meatballs, this recipe did not live up to expectations. I’ve been making Damn Delicious recipes almost exclusively for at least a month and this is the first one to be just ok. I’m not eliminating cook’s error as the reason it didn’t score higher in my family’s palate. Perhaps a different marinara would have made the difference. I think it has a place in my repertoire if I use frozen meatballs instead. It would be a good weeknight meal that could come together in under an hour.
This was delicious. I did find it a little dry so added more sauce. Friend asked for recipe and when she made it she also felt dry but didn’t add extra sauce.
Also used panko Italian because was all I had. It worked great. Making for a dinner party next week and will stick to your meatball recipe for now. They were so good didn’t want to take a chance on store bought.
I love all of your recipes! This one is a winner!! My husband and 2 teenage boys gobble it up. I actually buy prepared raw meatballs (I use spicy) to make it go even quicker. Start to finish is 1 hour. Also I use Rao’s marinara. Thank you for all of the delicious recipes!!!
Hi! This was delicious and my whole fam loved it! I used the Trader Joe’s meatballs you recommended – first time trying them – and they were so yummy! This recipe will go into my regular rotation. Thank you!
I love all of your recipes! This one is a winner!! My husband and 2 teenage boys gobble it up. I actually buy prepared raw meatballs (I use spicy) to make it go even quicker. Start to finish is 1 hour. Also I use Rao’s marinara. Thank you for all of the delicious recipes!!!
So excited to try this! I’ve loved every single recipe I’ve tried from Damn Delicious! I’m wondering which marinara brand people are using? It’s like I’m picky about jarred sauce but I also haven’t figured out which one is best. Any suggestions?
Rao’s and Delallo are my favorites!!
So easy to make! I have a dairy sensitivity, so I used less burrata (about half) but still so delicious! Also, I used turkey meat instead of beef and pork, but meatballs were still juicy and flavorful. A must make recipe!
I’ve recently had to eliminate eggs from my diet. Can you suggest the what substitution to use?
1 tablespoon of chia seeds and 3 tablespoons of water. Let sit for a few minutes to thicken. It doesn’t change the taste but has nice binding properties. My son is allergic to egg and I use this substitute all the time!
Aquafaba (basically chickpea oil) is also a great egg substitute
I made this last night and it went down really well with everyone. It is perfect comfort food.
Very delicious. I made this for my family tonight and they loved it. Even made a batch for my son who has a milk allergy (just excluded the burrata cheese). He raved and raved about how delicious it was. Thanks so much for the recipe!
Thank you Chungah,
This was absolutely delicious and fed my hungry family of 7 people!
Didn’t use garlic and only had mozarella as I couldn’t find barata.
Yum, yum, yum!