Food

The Baked Ziti Recipe That My Picky Kids Approved

I’m always looking for meals to add to our menu that are easy, cheap, and kid-friendly.

This week we tried Easy Baked Ziti. I love this dinner idea because it’s an inexpensive way to feed multiple people.

We are a family of six and can get tired of eating spaghetti quick, so I knew this would be a great alternative!

My favorite thing about this meal is that it tastes a lot like lasagna, but without the high price tag.

These days, with grocery prices rising faster than ever before, we’re trying to save as much money as we can on food.

Easy Baked Ziti Ingredients

For this recipe, you will need penne noodles, pasta sauce, mozzarella cheese, ricotta cheese, and provolone — the secret cheese that makes this sooooo good.

I added Italian ground pork sausage which made this meal meaty and packed full of flavor.

I cooked the ground pork first in some oil with onion and garlic, drained that, then added pasta sauce to the meat.

Once my meat sauce was done, it was time to layer my 9×13 pan with all the ingredients.

I served it with a simple spring salad mix on the side.

Does it Pass the Picky-Eater Test?

I have four growing boys with big appetites (they are very active) and two of the four are extremely picky eaters — they will have a whole meltdown at the site of anything green on their plate.

Every time we try something new I have them all rate it on a scale from 1-10, so I can determine whether or not it’s worth making again.

Here’s how it went.

My two picky eaters (7 & 4) struggled to eat all their food, as usual. They were constantly knit-picking at every ingredient, and couldn’t decided if they didn’t like it, which I know means that they did!

My other two brave boys LOVED this! They are 12 & 6 years old and rated it a 8/10 & 10/10.

So I made an executive decision to favorite this family meal. Honestly, it really was so good we barely had any leftovers!

We will definitely keep Baked Ziti on our 8-week rotating menu because it’s simply too cheap, easy, and delicious not to! Are you going to give this dinner idea a try?

Get the recipe here: Easy Baked Ziti