Baked Ziti Meal Prep | Honest Abe Living in the Kitchen

Join Molly Cooper in this week’s episode of Honest Abe Living in the Kitchen as she whips up a healthy, delicious Baked Ziti that’s perfect for meal prepping! 🍝🔥 This lightened-up classic is packed with bold Italian flavors, lean protein, and the perfect cheesy goodness—all while being freezer-friendly and easy to make ahead.

🔹 Ingredients & step-by-step instructions included!
🔹 Perfect for meal prep & busy weeks!
🔹 Subscribe for more delicious home-cooked meals!

👉 Don’t forget to LIKE, COMMENT, & SUBSCRIBE for more cozy, homemade recipes from Molly Cooper and Honest Abe Living!

Ingredients:

12 ounces ziti or penne pasta (whole grain or regular)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound ground turkey, lean ground beef, or Italian sausage
3 cups marinara sauce (homemade or high-quality jarred)
1 cup ricotta cheese (part-skim recommended)
1 large egg
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional, for heat)
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (part-skim recommended)
Fresh basil or parsley for garnish (optional)
Instructions:

Preheat & Prep Pasta:
Preheat your oven to 375°F (190°C). Boil a large pot of salted water and cook pasta until very al dente (about 5 minutes). Drain, rinse with cool water, and set aside.
Prepare the Meat Sauce:
Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the ground turkey, beef, or sausage and cook until browned, breaking it apart as it cooks. Drain excess fat. Stir in the marinara sauce and let simmer for 5 minutes.
Make the Ricotta Mixture:
In a bowl, mix ricotta cheese, egg, Parmesan cheese, garlic powder, onion powder, Italian seasoning, salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes (if using).
Assemble the Baked Ziti:
In a large bowl, combine the cooked pasta, meat sauce, and ricotta mixture. Stir until evenly coated.
Layer in Baking Dish:
Grease a 9×13-inch baking dish. Spread half of the pasta mixture in the dish. Sprinkle with 1 cup of shredded mozzarella. Add the remaining pasta mixture on top and finish with the remaining 1 cup mozzarella and extra Parmesan.

Bake:
Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 10-15 minutes or until the cheese is golden and bubbly.
Let Rest & Serve:
Let baked ziti cool for 5-10 minutes before serving. Garnish with fresh basil or parsley if desired.

Meal Prep & Storage Tips:
Refrigeration: Store in airtight containers for up to 4 days.
Freezing: Freeze portions for up to 2 months. Thaw overnight before reheating.
Reheating: Warm in the microwave or oven at 350°F for 15-20 minutes until heated through.

welcome to another episode of honest a living in the kitchen I’m April Patterson and I’m excited to bring Miss Molly Cooper back with us our director of marketing at honest St log homes along with our interior designer and honestly she wears a lot more hats even than that so we are going to make B ziti bag ziti and it’s a prep meal so it’s a meal prep yes yeah and that is a really big thing I know with with kids and with life and school being able to meal prep and have these meals in the freezer you pull them out you pop them in the oven by golly you got you got a meal yeah so yeah we’re going to do a couple today so we’ll show you all of those uh and we’ll freeze those and we’ll we’ll be able to pull them out through the week and use them when life happens I love it let’s get cooking so we’re going to start out branding our hamburger meat this is some of our meat we’ve raised at our farm at Acres of Grace farm so I’m really excited to get cooking on this and Molly’s yes you’re going to show the rest we are going to um we’ve got some water boiling on the stove and we are going to um cook off this pasta just until done so you don’t want to make it all the way finished so alente um but we’ll get this in the water main thing to um our pot of water uh for our pasta is salted so you you know you really want it to be a good nearly sea salt uh saltiness um because that pasta there’s so much of it and it really absorbs all of the salt and while we’re at it we’re going to just give our hamburger meate just a little bit of salt as well okay so for um the pasta sauce mixture um I’m going to go ahead and start putting that together so we’re going to um have our egg I cracked it in a bowl just so that we can check and make sure that we don’t have any shells in that egg so we’re going to put that down in our bowl that to the side and then I am going to um just go ahead and put together all the rest of it all the ingredients that we have and I don’t typically measure when I cook um I just sort of measure with my eyes so if you know that just makes it a little quicker and that’s the whole point of these meal Preps [Music] so we are just pouring the hamburger pasta sauce mixture into the ricotta cheese mixture and we will combine that April it’s going to stir that up really good for us I can do that sir we are going to now put the drained rinse pasta um into our sauce mixture okay so we are going to take our ziti mixture pour it into our throwaway dish that will be easily Frozen um so we can pull this out this week we’re just going to pour it in I did spray this pan with some Pam and because we don’t want it to stick we want to be able to get all all of the good stuff out whenever we go to serve it and we’re just going to evenly distribute it in this hand and sprinkle it all over coat it pretty good usually I will use a whole two cups um the recipe calls for like three but that’s a lot of cheese in my opinion so I cut it down to two and and finally we’re going to garnish it with just a little bit of fresh basil right on top everywhere and that’s it that is B ziti we will put it in um the freezer today and by Thursday we’re going to mess up and we will not have planned for dinner and we’ll be able to pull it out and have dinner okay guys so we’ve got our first meal prep uh the baked ziti and all they’re going to do when they’re ready to take this out is 375 degrees bake for 55 minutes minutes covered with full the last five minutes take it off yep and if it’s super Frozen you may want to add um 20 more minutes to your cooking time just to make sure that middle is really good and cook through extra bonus um if you have time or think of it um you could set it out and and thaw it out for just a little bit just set it on the counter at and let it thaw out at room temperature um and that should take maybe an hour hour and a half or so um and then bake it off at 375 450 55 minutes uncover for the last five so that you can get that cheese nice and toasted up on top yay the final step what we’re going to do before we put it in the freezer is we are going to cover it I always like using two layers I don’t know why there’s no science behind it whatsoever um but that’s just what I do so here we are ready to go in the oven if you’re super cool um like April uh you could and if you do this a lot you’ve got a lot of different U meal preps that you’re going to do um for the week you know obviously you need a mark on here b z go for it look at that beautifulness fake zie go for it all right we’re going to do some more meal preps so stay tuned for the next one