I’m showing you how to make a delicious, freezer-friendly meat sauce that works perfectly for both spaghetti and my famous baked ziti. This Italian pasta sauce with ground beef can be made ahead of time, stored in the freezer, and pulled out whenever you need a quick, weeknight meal. I also share tips on how to use this meat sauce in both a classic spaghetti or the cheesiest baked ziti.
➡️SPAGHETTI RECIPE: https://www.familysavvy.com/family-savvy-spaghetti-sauce/
➡️BAKED ZITI RECIPE: https://www.familysavvy.com/best-baked-ziti-for-a-crowd/
➡️BAKED ZITI TUTORIAL: https://youtu.be/m4tYOZIu_f4?si=nREUkYXS9PmcKIat
➡️MEAL PREP GROUND BEEF TUTORIAL: https://youtu.be/NK5pGyWm8Cc?si=HakTF9g1W_VJNiiy
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[Music] Hello my friends. I hope you are having a fabulous day. I am here today to share with you a cooking hack that will save you time and stress. I’m going to share with you how to make my baked ziti meat base. B A S E base. Now, if you want to know how I made the meat portion of this base, I’ve done a previous video and it’s super helpful because I tell you how I use ground beef, sometimes ground turkey, pork, Italian sausage to make it ahead and season it and get it ready for the freezer so that you can pull it out and make a number of recipes. I have many that I’ll link to in the caption. So, you can find any of my recipes and use any of these things for those, but this in particular is going to be a baked ziti base, meat base. So, it’s the foundation for my baked ziti. I highly recommend that you try my baked ziti. And here are a few reasons why. Number one, it feeds a crowd. You can make my one recipe for baked ziti. It makes two casserolelesized portions. So, you are cooking something that you’re going to divide into two casserolelesized portions, but you’re doing it all at one time. So, it’s not like you’re taking extra time to make a second casserole size portion. It all comes together at the same time. And it all coincidentally is going to use the meat base that I’m about to show you how to make. So, number one, it feeds a crowd. And if you’re not feeding a crowd, you can serve one to your family, freeze one for later or give one away to someone who needs a meal. Or you can portion it into smaller freezer containers, freeze them, and pull out smaller portions as you want baked ziti. Number two, it is a delicious, comforting, familyfriendly meal. Everyone loves this baked ziti from children to adults. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t love it. You have your seasoned meat. You’re going to have rich marinara sauces that you simmer with your meat. And then you have cheeses. You have provolone. You have mozzarella. You have ricotta. You can even add cottage cheese if you want to. And then you’ve got sour cream. And you’ve got a few other things that you combine and you layer with pan pasta or ziti pasta. and you serve that. It’s melty, bubbly, cheesy. People will rave. And you can actually do what I’m going to do today. You can make your meat base and then you can make the casserole right away or you can do what I’m going to do when I mix up this um baked ziti meat base. I’m going to mix it up and I’m going to freeze the meat base because I don’t have time to make pasta now and I actually am out of proolone. need to get some ricotta. So, I’m doing the hard part now, getting it in the freezer, and then whenever I’m ready to make baked ziti, I take it out of the freezer, put it in the fridge a day or two, let it thaw, and then there is the foundation for one of the best dishes ever. And the hard part and the messy part is done. All you have to do is layer all the ingredients and bake. So, those are the reasons I hope that you’ll try my baked ziti. I’ve had this recipe go viral so many times. I’ve had people send me messages that they served this over the holidays. One follower said she served this at a wedding reception. She had her caterers make it in large portions. But anyway, you’re not going to believe how simple it is. Now, if you want to know exactly how I seasoned and browned this meat, you can refer to the previous YouTube video. But this is my spaghetti sauce or baked ziti ground beef because I use ground beef and I use Italian sausage. So you could take this and you could make my spaghetti sauce or you could take this and make my ziti base. If you used this for spaghetti, then you would put different ingredients. There would be tomato paste and different spices. But since I’m making my baked ziti, I’ve got the meat base and I’m going to show you how to make the ziti base. And this is actually much easier as far as mixing up the meat with the sauces than the spaghetti because all you’re doing is getting four of your favorite jarred pasta sauces or whatever you have on hand. This is what I had on hand. I have three different brands. I have a Ryos. So, basically, you’re just This is cooled off and you’re adding jarred pasta sauce. So, this is Rehea’s homemade marinara. So, I’m going to add it. And I’m just going to put it in the same pan that I made the meat. Okay. And then I’ve got two of this. This is Pana. I don’t know what this is, but it looks like a fabulous brand. So, I’m going to put this. And my recipe, which I will link to, calls for four, I believe, 24 oz. You can use a little extra. Typically, my recipe uses just 2 lbs of ground beef. So, four 24 oz jarred pastas is perfect, but I added Italian sausage to this. You don’t have to be exact. We’re going to add the other one. And the quality of your pasta sauce matters. If you use great pasta sauce, it’s just going to make it even better. This is a Reo’s homemade red wine marinara. So, I just pulled everything that even has a different color. So, lot of complexity here. And that’s it. You have this seasoned meat. I did the meat today and I thought about freezing the meat and labeling it spaghetti or ziti meat base, but then I thought, you know what? I’m going to go ahead cuz I know I want to make a baked ziti in the next few weeks. And I’m just going to add the sauce. Now, there’s one reason I like to freeze my meat bases in sauce instead of thawing just the meat and then adding all the sauce ingredients and then cheeses or what else. Because if you think about it, if you’re freezing ground meat, that’s just the meat and the seasonings. No matter how hard you seal it, it’s not condensed. It’s got room for air. But if you look at this, you’ve got the meat encased and coated in all of this yummy sauce. So, it’s like insulation from freezer burn. This is all room temp. There’s no need to simmer it because it’ll simmer and cook when it’s removed from the freezer, thawed, put into the casserole, and baked. So, this is all you have to do. So, now I want to show you how I’m going to freeze this. So, since this is for one entire baked ziti, I think I can get this all in this one gallon freezer ziplo. So, you never want to put it in the ziplo when it’s hot. You want to make sure that it’s room temp. You don’t want a hot plastic bag. I might guys have to get another bag or a two gallon. Two gallon freezer bags. I love I think I’m going to make it. I love them because even if they’re a little on the large size for freezing things like this, that extra room allows you to flatten your sauce a little bit where it’s easier to store in your freezer. So, let me see. Yeah, this is going to be sort of bulky. I’m going to go ahead and just finish this. So, y’all bear with me. Going to double bag this because if this were to break, I’d be so sad. Okay. So, now here’s what we have. So, I’m going to label it baked ziti sauce. I’m going to put the date. I’m going to freeze it. And then in the next few weeks, I’m going to pull this out, throw it in the fridge. I like to use disposable aluminum pans to make these dishes because we typically serve these at our small group with our church kiddos and we don’t like to have to clean up. We like to spend our time visiting. So, I like to make this and those. But anyway, this is all I need and then we’re on the way to a delicious baked ziti. I hope this was helpful. If y’all have any questions or comments, please leave them below. I’m grateful for all of you who stopped by. If you love this content, subscribe to my channel. And until next time, be blessed and stay savvy. [Music]
Dining and Cooking