I hope you’ve decorated the noodle tree – and no, that’s not a euphemism – because today is World Pasta Day!
Yeah, I usually ignore these food holidays, too, but one that gives me an excuse to eat more spaghetti? Especially on Meatless Monday? I’m in.
This Baked Ziti with Spinach and Gorgonzola comes from Jack Bishop’s “The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook,” which every vegetarian (or lover of Italian food) should own. In this recipe, the star is the sauce, a classic buttery béchamel pimped out with a big handful of Gorgonzola while the sauce is still hot. As the pasta bakes, it absorbs most of the sauce, so you have the sharpness of the creamy Gorgonzola permeating the dish and acting as a counterpoint to the bitterness of the spinach.
However, if you’re not a Gorgonzola fan, no worries! Replace it with another good melting cheese, like fontina, gruyére, cheddar, monterey jack, gouda or asiago. Just be sure to use the full-fat version of whatever cheese you choose. Low-fat cheeses generally don’t melt well, and they won’t have the intense flavor that this sauce requires.
If you need to cut calories, just spoon a smaller serving onto your plate and enjoy the hell out of every bite.
Baked Ziti with Spinach and Gorgonzola
Adapted from Jack Bishop’s “The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook”
Serves 4
- 2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 cups Classic Béchamel (recipe below), hot
- 4 ounces full-fat Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled (about 2/3 cup)
- 1 pound flat-leaf spinach
- 1 medium onion, minced
- Salt
- Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
- 1 pound ziti (recommended: Barilla Plus®)
- 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
- To cook the pasta, bring 4 quarts of water to boil in a large pot over high heat. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 13-by-9-inch baking dish with 1/2 tablespoon of butter, and set aside.
- Grab a large bowl (one big enough to hold the cooked ziti, spinach and béchamel), and pour the hot béchamel into the bowl. Add the Gorgonzola, and stir it into the béchamel. Set aside.
- Remove and discard the stems from the spinach. (If the spinach hasn’t been prewashed, wash the leaves in cold water until grit no longer appears in the bottom of the bowl. Shake the leaves to remove excess water, but don’t pat them dry.) Set aside.
- Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons butter in a deep pot. Add the onion, and sauté over medium heat until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add spinach. Stir to coat the leaves evenly with the butter. Sprinkle with salt to taste. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the spinach has wilted, about 5 minutes.
- Transfer the spinach mixture (including any liquid in the pot) into the bowl with the béchamel. Stir. Add nutmeg, and adjust the seasonings. Set aside.
- When your water comes to a boil, add salt and ziti. Check the recommended boiling time in the instructions on the package, and cook until it is 1 to 2 minutes shy of that time. Drain.
- Stir the ziti into the large bowl with the béchamel and spinach. Toss to coat well. Pour the mixture into the baking dish. Sprinkle the Parmigiano-Reggiano over the pasta.
- Bake, stirring twice, until the pasta has absorbed most of the sauce in the baking dish and is just beginning to turn golden brown in spots, about 25 minutes. Serve immediately.
Classic Béchamel
Makes about 3 cups
- 3 cups whole milk
- 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter
- 4 1/2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
- Using a small saucepan, heat the milk until hot but not scalded or boiling. In the meantime, in a separate saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. When the butter is foamy, whisk in the flour until smooth. Stir for 2 minutes over medium heat. Do not let the flour brown.
- Add several tablespoons of the hot milk, and whisk vigorously. Continue adding milk in small increments, whisking until incorporated, until it has all been added to the sauce.
- Add the salt, and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, until the sauce thickens to the consistency of heavy cream, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, and use immediately or cool to room temperature.
STORAGE: You can refrigerate the sauce for up to 2 days. Before you use it, bring it up to room temperature, and whisk until smooth.
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This is fantastic! I loooove Gorgonzola. This will definitely be added to the "to try" list.
I agree – I'm all for celebrating pasta eating!
wow looks amazing! Thank you for sharing.
Oooh, looks so good! Love that you're bringing back gorgonzola! Makes me want to shout out Wallace and Gromit quotes! ;) Bet it was tasty!
I ADORE the intense flavor of gorgonzola. Go stinky cheese or go home is what I always say.
great pasta dish. I think that you did well by World Pasta Day. really well.
OK, thanks for saying we could use another stinky cheese, because then there's hope…but sorry, I'm still drooling over that cauliflower. And I don't even LIKE cauliflower.
Looks insanely good!
This doesn't look difficult at all, and it uses spinach, which I've been wanting to cook with more! I eat it in salads and on sandwiches but rarely cook with it.
This looks so tempting, i love gorgonzola cheese and ur pasta dish looks wonderful!!
This pasta looks fantastic.
I'd love for you to submit on of your beautiful photos, and a link to your post, to my new vegetarian food photo gallery showcasing the beautiful and flavorful vegetarian food.
Ha! I love your advice on how to cut calories from this recipe. Low-fat cheese should be illegal.
I'm not a fan of Gorgonzola, but I do love a bechamél with gruyére. Mmm… so creamy. I have some spinach in the fridge, so this may be dinner tonight!
This would be a great post to link to Midnight Maniac Meatless Mondays.
♥ Rebecca Jean
Midnight Maniac
I cannot tell you how hungry this post just made me feel! Yum!
i could probably eat this every day for dinner
While I hate to see the nutritional analysis for this recipe….I must say, it was great. Made it this evening. My only problem is that I had made the pasta a few days ago, and my husband kept putting some into his lunch soup–so I had less than it called for. So I substituted some frozen cauliflower, and this turned out *great*. Made me feel a little better, anyways, about the "good stuff" in the recipe. I also added some w/wht bread crumbs, mixed in with the Parmeson, on the top, toward the end of the baking time.
BTW, even my 5yo son liked it w/ the gorgonzola–albeit I used a more mild gorgonzola. The dish was addictive. Even if not super healthy, we'll make again (just not too soon!)
I made this tonight and it turned out great! I used asiago instead of gorgonzola because it's all we could find at the grocery store, and penne noodles instead of ziti. I also doubled the spinach and used more pasta than called for, because I didn't want to be stuck with leftover bechamel sauce.
I did get a little scared when adding the hot milk to the roux, because it formed a thick grainy paste and didn't even vaguely resemble a creamy sauce – and even when I added seven or eight tablespoons of milk at a time it still remained thick and pasty. I started to think I'd read the recipe wrong and added way too much flour! Anyway, I dumped in the rest of the milk in about 3 big pours (whisking thoroughly after each) and to my amazement it did become a smooth sauce with a viscosity like thick cream, just as you said.
Also, I'm a bad multi-tasker so I made the recipe in this order: made the bechamel sauce, and set it aside. Boiled the pasta on one burner, prepared the onions/butter/spinach mixture on the other. Dumped everything together in a bowl, mixed, poured into pan and baked.
It turned out beautifully – it has that warm, almost chicken-brothy (for lack of a better description; I'm a vegetarian and I'm sure an omnivore would scoff at that!) homestyle taste that's sometimes difficult to cultivate in a vegetarian meal. Perfect for my partner, who's sick with a cold and wanted comfort food. I'll check out the cookbook you recommended. Thanks so much for sharing this recipe!