When we're planning to entertain, we like to find crowd-pleasing recipes that can feed a large group without breaking the bank. We also appreciate dishes that can be made ahead and just popped in the oven so that we can focus more on conversation with guests than cooking. Pasta is often a go-to for such scenarios, and lately we've come to enjoy two recipes in particular: Easy Ziti Bake and Spinach Lasagna Roll-Ups.
This recipe is delightfully simple and yields a huge dish of food to share with hungry visitors.
The first step is set your pasta to boil (we used whole wheat, but go with whatever you enjoy). While that's happening you can focus on browning the ground meat. We vary between using turkey, chicken, or beef, and we throw in a bit of spinach or kale to incorporate a veg. Once it's cooked, you add the marinara to create a delicious meat sauce.
As soon as your pasta is drained, blend it into the cheese mixture. Make sure all the pasta is nicely coated.
Finally, in a greased baking dish you layer the meat sauce and pasta.
The recipe says that the meat sauce should wind up being the top layer, but every time we've made it we always run out by the time we get to the top! So if you like your pasta as saucy as possible, we'd recommend having an extra jar of marinara on hand to pour over the whole thing. But even without that added step, the end result is delicious. (If you make it in advance, just heat until it bubbles or a cooking thermometer reads 160 F.)
We love lasagna, but don't love the fact that it's often hard to cut without everything sliding apart. That's especially frustrating when you have a table full of guests and a spatula strung with cheese struggling to dole out equal portions. Fun solution: lasagna roll-ups! We chose a spinach version, but you can put pretty much whatever you want in there.
In the case of using spinach, it's ideal to use frozen. We toyed with the idea of using fresh spinach but realized that once it started to cook it would release a lot of water and shrink. With frozen, you thaw it and squeeze out all the excess water to avoid that issue. You then mix the spinach with your cheese mixture (very similar to the one used in the ziti) to create your lasagna filling.
Once you've boiled your lasagna noodles (again, we used whole wheat), lay them out flat. The recipe didn't call for this, but we dribbled a stream of marinara sauce on each noodle to make each roll a little more saucy and flavorful.
Add your spinach/cheese filling, leaving a little space at the end to prevent overflow once you start rolling.
Roll the noodle carefully and place it in your greased baking dish with a layer of marinara at the bottom. Put the seam side down so it doesn't come undone. Repeat the process until you have rolled all 12 noodles. It may seem like they won't fit in the dish at first, but if you gently press them to the side they will nestle perfectly and keep each other in line.
Pour some marinara over the tops of the rolls and bake until the cheese is bubbly. You're left with rolls of lasagna that scoop easily out of the dish to serve and sit perfectly on the plate without sliding apart!
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