Classic Baked Ziti

The formula

Every ingredient resolved to grams, expressed against the recipe's own base — next to the median of all 29.

	this recipe	typical
cheese	162%	85%
dairy	54%	0%
fat	6%	0%
thickener	1%	0%
egg	22%	0%
aromatics	3%	12%
different cheeses	2.0	2.0
melt idx	0.7	0.7
cheese flavor idx	0.4	0.4
stretch idx	0.6	0.7

Where it stands out

• #3 of 29 for richness

Adapts cleanly: egg-free, nut-free (documented swaps, applied on the dish page)

Ingredients

Weights computed by us.

454 g	1 pound 1% cottage cheese (about 2 cups)
100 g	2 large eggs
57 g	2 ounces about 1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
454 g	1 pound ziti or other similar pasta (like rigatoni or penne)
27 g	2 tablespoons olive oil
15 g	5 medium garlic cloves (finely minced (about 5 teaspoons))
794 g	1 (28-ounce) can tomato sauce
411 g	1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 g	1 teaspoon dried oregano
6 g	1 tablespoon dried basil
4 g	1 teaspoon sugar
	Black pepper
5 g	2 teaspoons cornstarch
244 g	1 cup milk (1% or above)
227 g	8 ounces mozzarella cheese (cut into 1/4-inch cubes)

Method: 9 steps, published by www.melskitchencafe.com — open the original ↗ or use bake mode for a follow-along with a screen that stays on.

“Made this recipe for some friends and it was a hit! I made some changes as I didn't have cottage cheese or an oven yesterday so I subbed sour cream for the cottage cheese, cooked the pasta completely and used all the other ingredients as directed to make one b” — a cook, 5.0★

“Amazing!  I made this tonight and it was delicious!  Nice and creamy not dry like some recipes that call for ricotta cheese, like trying to swallow bricks.  I made my own meat sauce recipe but followed everything else exactly and my fiancée loved it.  Solid ch” — a cook, 5.0★