One-Pot Ziti with Italian Sausage and 3 kinds of cheese makes a delicious weeknight meal and there’s hardly any clean-up at all. As a bonus, you can have this meal made start to finish in about 30 minutes.
Easy Clean-up
The ziti gets cooked right in the pot with the sauce, so there’s no need to clean a separate pot.
The sauce has plenty of tomato flavor from diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste. I like to use sweet Italian sausage and then add just a few red pepper flakes to give the sauce just a little spice.
Mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese, and Ricotta cheese give One Pot Ziti tons of cheesy flavor.
Equipment Needed For One-Pot Ziti
To make One Pot Ziti, I used my brand new Le Creuset Dutch Oven . I am in love with this pot. Isn’t the color gorgeous? Le Creuset products are extremely high quality and they retain heat really well, cooking your food evenly every time. They are pots you will keep for a lifetime. You can use any Dutch oven or large pot with a heavy bottom.
How To Make Spicy
If you want your ziti to be spicy, double the amount of crushed red pepper flakes.
More Amazing Pasta Recipes
- Slow Cooker Crack Chicken Pasta
- Creamy Cajun Sausage Pasta
- Spaghetti Casserole
- Italian Sausage Manicotti
- Crock Pot Baked Ziti
- Baked Ziti with Italian Sausage
One-Pot Ziti with Sausage
Ingredients
- 1 pound sweet Italian sausage,, casings removed if in casings
- 1/2 a medium yellow onion,, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic,, minced
- 1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes
- 1 (14.5-ounce) can tomato sauce
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 3 cups uncooked ziti
- 1/3 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
- 1/2 pound whole-milk mozzarella cheese,, cut into small cubes
- 1 cup (8 ounces) ricotta cheese
Instructions
- Place sausage in a Dutch oven and cook over medium-high heat, breaking sausage up with a wooden spoon as it cooks. Once sausage is about halfway cooked, add onion. Cook 2 to 3 more minutes and add garlic. Cook 1 minute.
- Add diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, Italian seasoning, sugar, salt, and red pepper flakes. Simmer for 10 minutes.
- Add water and ziti. Stir well to get the ziti submerged. Cook 8 to 10 minutes or until pasta is almost al dente. (You still want it fairly firm because it will continue to cook for a while longer.)
- Remove Dutch oven from heat. Stir in Parmesan cheese and mozzarella cheese. With a spoon, dollop ricotta cheese on top. Place Dutch oven in oven under the broiler until cheese on top is hot and melted.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Originally posted January 17, 2016.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
Absolutely love this!!! I’ve made this a hand full of times and each time I get many compliments. Thanks for sharing this great recipe.
Love that it’s all in one pot! My husband love it!!
This recipie was really delicious! I had to add a little extra water because after 8-9 mins the pasta was supposed to be Al Dente according to the box, but it was still pretty hard. The only thing I might change next time I make it is I may boil the pasta separately and then add it along with a little of the starchy pasta water to thin the sauce out just a bit. Other than that, this was really delicious!
The teenager in the house gives this recipe a thumbs up. I will use chicken broth in place of water to give it a little more flavor.
My wife and I had some friends over for supper and this is the recipe she made. She served it with garlic bread and a salad. This is really good. It’s a keeper us. Our friends loved it as much we did. Thanks for sharing this recipe.
I made this and it was amazing! I read the other reviews and was going to cook my noodles separately after I cooked my sauce! So glad I did because the sauce was so good and I wanted to eat some! I started thinking of ways i could make it healthy for me. I actually substituted the noodles for zucchini! And my super vegetable picky family loved it! They went back for 3rds!!! I still offered the noodles on the side but only one of the kids picked the noodles over the cooked in zucchini!
I don’t have a Dutch over so using a regular ol big pot. I replaced the water with Chicken Broth and voila…… my family loved it!!!
Family fave. Made with some Dutch oven bread.
Awesome recipe, made this a bunch of times the best way to make baked ziti.
Delicious and relatively easy to make! I subbed with hot sausage and added a bit more red pepper flakes because I wanted it a little spicier. Would definitely recommend.
I have a 3.5 qt Dutch oven, how can I modify the recipe?