Baked Beefatonia

Baked Beefatonia

Preheat oven to 450 degrees
Total time needed: 1 hour serves 8-10 people

1 lb mini Rigatoni (cooked al dente)
1 ½ lbs ground beef (or any meat)
3-4 cups of your favorite marinara sauce (bottled or home made!)
1 egg
½ cup seasoned bread crumbs
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp red pepper flake
1 tsp onion powder
1½ tbsp parsley
1½ cups ricotta cheese
2 cups shredded mozzarella
1 tbsp fresh Basil leaves chopped fine
salt + pepper
olive oil

Bring water to a boil for pasta, add pasta and cook until al dente (about 7 minutes)
**you want the pasta to be al dente because you will be baking it later**
in a bowl combine the ground beef, egg, bread crumbs, red pepper flake, garlic powder, onion powder, parsley, basil and salt + pepper.
Mix until combined.
Add small amount of olive oil to a non-stick frying pan and cook the meat until it is no longer pink.
Drain meat, add back to pan and add most of the marinara sauce to the meat.
It should be a very thick meat sauce. (I am giving you an estimate of how much sauce to use)

Once the pasta is cooked, drain it and put it back into the pot. Add about ½ cup of the marinara sauce to it and mix until all is coated.

Get a nice big baking dish (I used a lasagna dish) spray it with non-stick cooking spray (helps with the clean up!)
Add a bit of the sauce to the bottom, then half the pasta.
Add the meat sauce and half of the ricotta cheese, top with 1/3 of the mozzarella cheese.
Layer the remaining pasta, meat sauce ricotta cheese and top it all off with the rest of the mozzarella cheese.

Cover with foil (spray with non-stick)
Bake @ 450 degrees for 30 minutes.
Remove foil and put the oven on broil and bake the cheese til it’s a light brown.

enjoy!!

This is SUCH a great dinner. you can prepare it all the day before up to the baking part, and pop it in the oven the next day for a no-stress dinner!

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