Recipe: Perfect Cheesy Ziti Florentine

Cheesy Ziti Florentine. Quick and Easy Italian Vegetarian Pasta and Noodles Creamy Ziti Florentine is a good weeknight recipe to have in your back pocket. Made with spinach, green onions, lemon, and ricotta cheese. Cook ziti in a large pot of boiling water according to package directions.

In a large saucepan, cook sausage, onions, green pepper, and garlic over medium heat until sausage is browned; drain fat. Add pasta sauce and cook until mixture is hot, stirring occasionally. Add pasta to the sauce mixture and mix well. You can cook Cheesy Ziti Florentine using 13 ingredients and 11 steps. Here is how you achieve that.

Ingredients of Cheesy Ziti Florentine

1. Prepare 1 lb of ground turkey.
2. You need 1 box of ziti (could use wheat or hidden veggie ziti).
3. You need 1 packages of frozen spinach, cooked and drained.
4. It's 16 oz of ricotta cheese (light).
5. You need 1 cup of mozzarella cheese.
6. It's 24 oz of tomato sauce.
7. It's 2 tbsp of basil pesto.
8. Prepare 2 tbsp of butter.
9. You need 2 tbsp of minced garlic.
10. It's 1/2 of medium onion.
11. Prepare 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese.
12. You need 1 of seasonings to taste.
13. You need 1 of optional specialty cheese to layer in the middle.

Baked ziti is one of those super easy recipes the whole family will love. Ziti is cooked, then tossed with spaghetti sauce, ricotta and mozzarella cheeses. Pour half of the ziti & sauce into the prepared casserole dish, then sprinkle with mozzarella and parmesan. Pour the rest of the ziti into the dish and top with the rest of the mozzarella and parmesan.

Cheesy Ziti Florentine step by step

1. Boil ziti in extra large pot, (do step 2 while boiling) drain return to pot and add tomato sauce, set aside.
2. Mix ricotta, pesto and cooked drained spinach in a bowl.
3. Melt butter in pan and cook onion and garlic to translucent, about 5 minutes and transfer to bowl.
4. In same pan brown turkey and season I used Italian and pepper, drain if necessary.
5. to the big pot with pasta and sauce add the turkey, garlic and onion mix, mozzarella and stir well (if there isn't enough sauce adding ketchup is fine, you can also add a little brown sugar if you're sensitive to tomato acidity). Then stir in ricotta mix. Now you should just have one gigantic pot of deliciousness.
6. From here you have options, bake it all... put into 3-4 disposable foil pans (2.25lb size) and freeze for multiple easy, delicious, mess free dinners another night or both this makes a lot... LOT about 8lbs.
7. Put in suitable sized pan(s) to bake or freeze. You can layer another cheese in the middle (I use mild chipolte or mozzarella slices), you can add more cheese to top, sprinkle with Parmesan or whatever you like.
8. If freezing close, label and date, put in freezer.
9. You can also just microwave!!!! I hate the ziti noodles on top after baking because they're dry and hard, they end up in my "reject pile". If you're like me, this ziti is perfectly fine to microwave (I never bake it) everything in it is cooked, and honestly it's quicker, just do it on 30-50% power with a paper plate on top.
10. If baking, bake 350-400, about an hour, again, everything in it is cooked you're simply just heating and melting. From thawed the same, just heat, oven, toaster oven or microwave!! Which also would make this a good dorm food.
11. Even after 3 huge boxes (about 7lbs) for the freezer I had more than enough for two serving!.

Baked Ziti with Cheese This pasta dish, made with Alfredo sauce, is deliciously different from typical tomato-based recipes. Extra cheesy, it goes together quickly and is always popular at potlucks. —Lisa Varner, El Paso, Texas Add Marinara sauce, tomatoes, cream cheese and sour cream to large pot and cook until well blended and cream cheese is melted. Add pasta and meat to pot and mix well. Top with fresh Mozzarella cheese and basil. Repeat layers of pasta, ricotta mixture and mozzarella cheese.