Baked Spaghetti Recipe (2024)

Classic! Whenever I use marinara from a jar, I rinse the jar out with 1/2 cup of red wine, which I add to the sauce. It transforms any off-the-shelf marinara.

I've been doing something similar for years using penne pasta, not spaghetti. Layer with marinara on the bottom, 1/2 lb. of par-cooked pasta, browned sausage, seasoned ricotta/mozzarella mixture, another layer of penne, marinara, mozzarella, and grated pecorino Romano. It beats wrestling with lasagna noodles and tastes just as good!

My mother and my aunts of Sicilian ancestry, living in the coal region of Northeastern PA, would bring this dish to every summer picnic. We called it baked macaroni. All forms of pasta were considered macaroni and the word pasta was never heard in our homes. And we made the meat sauce from scratch. I have to say there is nothing better than this for comfort food.

Have made variations of this for years and call it pasta bake. Sauté any and every vegetable you like instead of the meat. Don’t need the egg. Also think of it as lazy lasagna.

Loved seeing this! My grandmother (I’m 72!) made this for every family/friend/entertaining event. We called it Italian Delight. Similar recipe, but the addition of corn was the secret ingredient that put it over the top…

As someone born and raised in Rome, I recognize this dish but know a better version of it. Just make your pasta for your pasta night: cook a lot of it. Put the leftovers in the fridge. The day after (or even two), take the pasta out (you can let it come to room temp. for better results), and then mix in your cheese etc. to bake. This dish is made with leftovers and it is meant to save people (like my mom who always make too much pasta) from waisting food.

This was pretty great! I made it as written and halved the recipe. Fit perfectly in an 8x8 baking dish, and now I have the other half of the ingredients to make it again. Thanks a lot, Ms. Heuck.

In Sicily this dish is made for various celebrations and is always a big hit. In stead of spaghetti we use twisted pasta or penne Instead of loose ground beef we make tiny meat balls. So good to see this recipe on NYT’s list.

I tried this, and my advice is, Don't, unless you like crunchy, chewy spaghetti.

You're making a classic baked ziti with penne, and why not? Penne, ziti, it's all delicious.

This is wonderful as written. I’ve actually been looking for a baked spaghetti recipe for a few months and am so glad NYT finally published one. The doctoring of a jarred marinara is great. Already looking forward to the leftovers later!

My mom used to make a version of this to stretch our food budget in the ‘70s. She would “hide” chunks of mozzarella (a delicacy then to a family of six) in the baked spaghetti and it was thrilling when you found one in the serving on your plate!

I adapted this for our vegetarian family by adding cooked chickpeas for heft. It's the best trick I know for morphing a meat casserole into a veg version, and yes, the kids do eat it!

My mother grew up in the South, and the only spaghetti she knew until she went to college was baked spaghetti. The family recipe has a homemade meat sauce featuring red wine and a little sugar, with herbs, that simmers for a good hour. Once the sauce is ready, add some cheddar cheese to the sauce, then cooked spaghetti ( thin is best), topped with some more cheese. It gets baked covered at 325 for a good 45 minutes, then uncovered for 10-15 minutes. Not vaguely Italian, but worth it.

My Sicilian family call this comfort food 'Baked Ziti'. Feeds a crowd and leaves them smiling.

Don’t know why this recipe doesn’t have 5 stars. This is comfort food at its ultimate finest. The juice was definitely worth the squeeze on this one. I’ll be making this again and would be a great potluck dish. Another comment mentioned it not being able to cut. It won’t cut when it’s warm but once it’s been sitting for at least a half hour it will cut easily.

Can use ground turkey but then double spices. Double the meat for men.Makes a great drop off meal with garlic bread, wine and cookiesMake it in two pans so 1/2 can go in the freezer. This make a TON. Any pasta works.

Nice dish. - subbed mushrooms and spinach for meat.

This was a big hit here - I made it last night for a birthday celebration for 7 people (including 3 teens!) and we still have plenty leftover this morning. I didn’t have a large enough jar of marinara sauce, so I used a 28 ounce jar of Rao’s and added half a can of plain tomato sauce. Really delicious and I’ll be adding it to my regular rotation.

This was the BOMB! Delicious comfort food which I plan to make over and over. Modifications: some smoked mozzarella with the regular mozzarella (always amps up lasagna in the right proportions), some mushrooms that were already in the fridge, and about 5 oz red wine poured in with the browned ground beef. Cannot recommend highly enough 👌

I make this regularly, using homemade spaghetti sauce (cleaning out the fridge sauce). This is quick, easy and so delicious - comforting, actually. The method is solid, allowing for infinite riffs - jarred or homemade sauce, any ground meat or meat-free…cheeses can be varied (with the exception of the ricotta, of course!) This recipe is a real favourite!

Be careful on dried thyme. Cut back or it will be too strong. Otherwise it was good.

Used the leftover bolognese sauce from making a lasagna; this was a huge hit with all ages (3 year to 79). I added a bit of “gravy” (Michael’s of Brooklyn), to assure that it wasn’t dry after baking. Easy to re-heat in the microwave with no appreciable difference in taste or texture, which is not always true of pasta dishes.

My family loved this. I think it would be better with less pasta, maybe 10-12 ounces.

Strange maybe, but didn’t think this was that great when I first cooked it and threw the printed out recipe in the recycle. I froze the rest of it and then reheated it tasted much better, see me delving in the recycle le bin to save the recipe after all!

Delicious! Made exactly filling recipe. Highly recommend.

I made this two nights ago as is (except a few added mushrooms in sauce) and it was great. I made sure all the pasta/sauce was completely covered in the cheese mixture and it kept the pasta soft. My husband loves spaghetti but next time I'll use rigatoni as an old Sicilian friend did and make the sauce a little juicier. Makes 8 huge or12 large pieces so no cooking for several days!

This doesn’t work so well as written—you need more sauce than that for a pound of spaghetti that you’re going to bake. I doubled the sauce and used about 2/3 of the total I made. I blitzed the basil with the ricotta the way Giada does in her butternut squash lasagna recipe. And you need more cheese, again, half again as much. I also broke the spaghetti in half so it wouldn’t be quite so messy trying to get it out of the pan. Experienced cooks will fiddle with this to align it to their own tastes

Very good with Penne and sausage

Made tonight with ground turkey, otherwise followed the recipe. It was a big hit. Next time I will add the red wine as suggested along with an extra 1/2 lb. of meat.