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Traditional baked ziti alla lucana recipe.
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Traditional baked ziti alla Lucana recipe from Basilicata.

This hearty recipe for traditional baked ziti alla Lucana comes from Basilicata. It’s loaded with ingredients including a tomato and porcini sauce, scamorza cheese, tiny meatballs and hard boiled eggs. An abundant and filling one plate meal that all the family will enjoy.
Prep Time15 minutes
Cook Time1 hour 15 minutes
Total Time1 hour 30 minutes
Course: Dinner, family meal, lunch
Cuisine: Basilicata, Mediterranean, Southern Italian
Keyword: baked pasta recipe, baked ziti with meatballs, ziti
Servings: 6
Calories: 1107kcal
Author: Jacqui

Equipment

  • 1 large bowl to make meatball mixture
  • 1 chopping board
  • 1 sharp knife
  • 1 frying pan to fry meatballs.
  • 1 large skillet for sauce
  • 1 large pot to cook ziti
  • 1 rectangular ceramic or pyrex oven dish
  • 1 tray to keep ready formed meatballs
  • 1 sheet parchment paper to keep ready formed meatballs

Ingredients

  • 1.10 pounds ziti or zitoni pasta break in half before cooking if long.

For the sauce

  • 1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms soak before cooking
  • 1 onion peeled and chopped
  • 1.75 pounds tomato passata you may need more

For meatballs

  • 1 pound ground pork or veal or beef
  • 7 ounces Italian pork sausage. removed from casing and crumble
  • 1 egg
  • 2 garlic cloves peeled and chopped
  • 2 slices stale country bread
  • 3.5 floz fresh whole milk
  • 2.5 ounces Pecorino Romano grated
  • 1.75 ounces white flour to roll meatballs in
  • 3-4 tablespoons olive oil to fry the meatballs

Other ingredients

  • 10.5 ounces scamorza cheese cubed. Or mozzarella
  • 2.5 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano grated for the topping
  • 6 eggs hard boiled and sliced
  • salt for pasta, sauce and meatballs
  • freshly ground black pepper. for sauce and meatballs
US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Ingredient preparation

  • Peel and finely chop the onion and garlic. Remove the sausage meat from the casing and crumble with your fingers. Soak the porcini in warm water and the stale bread in milk. Cut the scamorza into small cubes.

Make the sauce

  • Remove the porcini from the soaking water. Keep the water to use in the sauce. Chop the porcini into small pieces.
  • Sauté the onion in olive oil until it starts to soften. Then add the porcini and continue cooking for 5 minutes. Next add the tomato passata and some of the porcini soaking water. Simmer on a low heat for about 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Make the meatballs

  • Squeeze the bread to remove most of the milk and put it in a large bowl with the ground meat, sausage meat, garlic, an egg and 70g of pecorino or Parmigiano (parmesan cheese). Use your hands to combine all of the ingredients until everything is just incorporated. Don’t over-work the mixture to avoid tough meatballs. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  • Wet your hands and take small amounts of the meatball mixture (about a flat tablespoon or even a teaspoon). Roll the mixture into small meatballs about the size of a walnut. Place the meatballs on a flour dusted piece of parchment paper on a tray until you finish them all. Roll them a little in the flour.
  • Lightly fry the ready meatballs in olive oil. Just brown them. They will finish cooking in the sauce and oven. Put the ready fried meatballs in a bowl lined with kitchenpaper to drain any excess oil.
  • Put half the meatballs in the sauce and simmer for a couple of minutes.

Cook the ziti pasta

  • Put a pot of water on to boil for the pasta. Add salt once it starts to boil and bring toa boil again. Break the ziti into halves or thirds and boil it until very al dente. Then drain.

Assemble your ziti alla lucana

  • Spread a layer of sauce on the bottom of a rectangular oven dish. Add a layer of cooked ziti. Mix the ziti with the sauce and then spoon over more sauce. Next add some meatballs, cubed cheese and egg slices. Make a second layer of ziti, cover it with sauce and add the meatballs, cubed cheese and egg.
  • Depending on the depth and size of your oven dish, make another layer, ziti, sauce, cheese, egg and meatballs. Finish with the last of the sauce and sprinkle a generous amount of grated Parmigiano cheese over the top.

Cook and serve

  • Bake your pasta al forno alla lucana in a heated oven at 180°c for 20-30 minutes. Keep an eye that the top doesn’t burn.
  • Let the baked ziti rest for 10-15 minutes before cutting into portions. If you serve straight out of the oven it may not hold together.

Notes

Cooks tips and notes
  1. Don’t over-work the meat mixture to avoid tough meatballs.
  2. Let the baked ziti rest for 10-15 minutes before cutting into portions. If you serve straight out of the oven it may not hold together.
  3. This pasta bake actually tastes even better the next day. You can keep it in the fridge for up to 2 days. Reheat in the oven covered with aluminum foil with a drizzle of olive oil over the top and some more grated cheese. Remove the foil for the last 5 minutes.
  4. You can also freeze this baked pasta for 2-3 months. Then defrost and reheat as above. To prevent freezer burn, wrap the dish tightly with a layer of plastic wrap (clingfilm) pressed directly onto the food, followed by a double layer of aluminum foil.

Nutrition

Calories: 1107kcal | Carbohydrates: 87g | Protein: 58g | Fat: 58g | Saturated Fat: 23g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 6g | Monounsaturated Fat: 24g | Trans Fat: 0.02g | Cholesterol: 332mg | Sodium: 1093mg | Potassium: 1339mg | Fiber: 6g | Sugar: 12g | Vitamin A: 1462IU | Vitamin C: 17mg | Calcium: 642mg | Iron: 6mg