Chicken Baked Ziti

Oct 17

Some time ago, I had a coworker named Theresa. She, I and a few other coworkers had become quite friendly and Theresa invited us over for lunch at her home. Being a naturally introverted person, I am always a little trepidatious when work friends start to become out-of-work friends, but I needn’t have feared because Theresa and the others were so welcoming and we had a great time! Anyway, Theresa decided to serve some of her famous chocolate chip cookies for dessert and for the main course she served us some Baked Ziti with Chicken. I was so blown away by it’s delicious, comforting flavor that I immediately asked her for the recipe. She did oblige, but I’m afraid it was more of a verbal description than a recipe. Never one to shy away from a challenge, however, I worked until I nailed down this recipe which is my version of her original. I think she’d be proud of it.

We need to start by marinating the chicken in some herbs and spices. My inspiration for this was to try to make the chicken taste like Italian sausage. Italian sausage is one of my favorite meats, but sausages can be so high on the calorie-meter that I thought it would be great if the chicken in this could have the health benefits but not sacrifice the flavor. The key to the herb/spice mix is the fennel seed. That’s the flavor you get when you bite right into an Italian sausage, so it’s key here to getting just the right flavor in your chicken. I use chicken thigh here because they tend to be cheaper and more flavorful, but you can easily substitute breast, as I did in the video which accompanies this recipe.

One of the things I love most about this recipe is how much cheese there is in it. It’s no secret that cheese is my favorite food group, and I can’t keep any extra in my house or I’ll binge it all in the middle of the night. Anyway, just like you would do with a lasagna, of which ziti is an easier version, you make a mixture of ricotta, parmesan, mozzarella and some egg to bind. This cheese mixture will make little pockets of heaven in the final dish, which make my mouth water just thinking about them.

You also need to cook off your pasta a bit before you start assembling the final dish. Because this will be baked, I cook the pasta to 4 minutes short of the package directions. This ensures that it won’t overcook when it’s in the oven. To ensure this is the case, I rinse the pasta in cool water after I drain it from the boiling water. This will instantly stop the pasta from cooking and make sure you don’t get a mushy mess as your final product.

The key to any good Italian dish, in my opinion, is the sauce. This one comes together so quickly compared to all those sauces you hear about that simmer on the stove for 3 hours. However, just because it’s quick doesn’t mean it won’t pack a flavor punch. The sauce gets all the flavor from that chicken we marinated in the beginning as well as a few extra dashes of herbs and spices. I use diced tomatoes here to give the sauce a little more body, and I tend to like chunks in my pasta sauce. If you don’t, then substitute crushed tomatoes or even petite-diced instead. This sauce is so good and comes together so quickly, that I’ll actually use it as a quick weeknight pasta sauce to go over spaghetti or rigatoni.

Once all the components have come together, it’s time to assemble. This is the part that makes it far superior to a lasagna. Lasagnas can take forever to put together because you need to delicately layer the pasta and the cheese and the sauce. The baked ziti is great because you just throw it in in layers and bake it off. When I first started making this recipe I mixed the pasta and cheese mixture together before assembling. I now dollop the cheese instead. This creates those fantastic cheese pockets I was talking about earlier, that really add a creamy texture to the finished dish. As you can see, this makes a lot of ziti. You can certainly feed a crowd with this recipe and have them leave happy.

Once the assembly is complete, you need only bake it off. I will sometimes throw on the broiler for the last 2 minutes to get a little extra brown on top of the cheese, but it isn’t necessary and I haven’t done that for these pictures.

The finished product of this recipe is truly to die for. This dish is so warm and comforting to me. The delicious flavor pops of the sauce against the creaminess of the cheese and the texture of the pasta is a combination that always makes me smile when I take a bite. I truly hope that you try this one and let me know how it goes!

Remember, you don’t have to be a professional to make magic in your kitchen.

Joe the Blue Wizard