I need a recipe for baked ziti to feed 30 people, with a meat sauce base

I have to prepare this for tomorrow evening

joe
  • Posted by: joe
  • January 17, 2016
  • 19630 views
  • 10 Comments

10 Comments

Melusine January 18, 2016
Here's a good one, courtesy of Fine Cooking.

http://www.food.com/recipe/baked-ziti-with-tomato-mozzarella-and-sausage-67898
 
Nancy January 18, 2016
Here's one with beef & pork sausage from all recipes, which site allows you to scale recipes up or down. >800 people have made and liked it.
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/26254/baked-ziti-iv/
 
702551 January 17, 2016
Sorry about the repeat answers, never happened before here at Food52 for me before tonight.
 
joe January 17, 2016
I have the facility and pans/trays etc to get the job done. I am using a Church banquet cooking kitchen facility with big ovens etc. What I cant figure is the amounts of various ingredients such as how much Penne pasta,(6 lbs ??) how much Ricotta cheese, mozzarella---and any other suggested ingredients---please help!
 
702551 January 17, 2016
Well, good to know you have the proper resources.

Are you following a recipe or just winging it? There are enough baked ziti recipes on the Internet to overload the Library of Congress.

Personally, I'd go with KimmyV's recipe and scale up. Or use your favorite search engine and follow a reputable source. Again, the Internet has no dearth of baked ziti recipes.

Ideally, you would have done a test run several days/weeks ago, but you don't have that luxury anymore and you are asking at 8:15pm PST Sunday night on a holiday weekend.

You need to commit to a plan NOW if you don't want to lose sleep. That's the way
 
702551 January 17, 2016
Well, good to know you have the proper resources.

Are you following a recipe or just winging it? There are enough baked ziti recipes on the Internet to overload the Library of Congress.

Personally, I'd go with KimmyV's recipe and scale up. Or use your favorite search engine and follow a reputable source. Again, the Internet has no dearth of baked ziti recipes.

Ideally, you would have done a test run several days/weeks ago, but you don't have that luxury anymore and you are asking at 8:15pm PST Sunday night on a holiday weekend.

You need to commit to a plan NOW if you don't want to lose sleep. That's the way
 
702551 January 17, 2016
Well, good to know you have the proper resources.

Are you following a recipe or just winging it? There are enough baked ziti recipes on the Internet to overload the Library of Congress.

Personally, I'd go with KimmyV's recipe and scale up. Or use your favorite search engine and follow a reputable source. Again, the Internet has no dearth of baked ziti recipes.

Ideally, you would have done a test run several days/weeks ago, but you don't have that luxury anymore and you are asking at 8:15pm PST Sunday night on a holiday weekend.

You need to commit to a plan NOW if you don't want to lose sleep. That's the way I see it.

Good luck.
 
KimmyV January 17, 2016
This isn't exactly bakes ziti, but I think its better. Rigatoni with a rich meat sauce and a bechamel. It is so good. In nigellas book "feast" it uses 3 pounds of pasta. The recipe I linked is a scaled down version. Just triple it. I have made it in my large roasting pan. It's perfect for a feast.
http://thegoddesskitchen.blogspot.com/2010/02/rigatoni-al-forno.html
 
702551 January 17, 2016
Again, the problem isn't the recipe itself. KimmyV's recipe serves 6. Tripling it as she suggests would only serve eighteen, far short of the thirty you have planned for.

The main challenge is the quantity for the dinner party: 30 people. You need to multiply KimmyV's recipes by five to hope to serve your guests.

I'm not convinced that a baked pasta dish is right for this group. Even if you had four hotel pans and two electric ovens, you would be basically tying up all of your oven resources for this dish.

My thought is that you should think about a different dish (or scale this back to an appetizer) and find other banquet-style things to serve.

Rice is going to be a far more scalable starch than baked pasta to serve to a larger group (assuming you have standard household appliances).

Again, this is not a recipe issue. This is an equipment resource challenge.
 
702551 January 17, 2016
I don't think the recipe is an issue, many of them are written to serve 8-10 people. Your challenge is to find the proper resources to cook and serve a large amount at one time.

I figure this is three hotel pans of baked ziti. Your biggest challenge would be to find enough oven space to cook three hotel pans of baked ziti, then provide the adequate serving equipment (steam tables, most likely) to serve them hot.
 
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