Rigatoni al Forno

Your favorite. But otherwise, rigatoni is the most versatile pasta shape. Rigatoni (meaning ridged) will make any sauce cling to it. It shines in baked pasta dishes (pasta al forno). It's also substantial enough to get a nice crusty edge when exposed on top of a casserole. 

Penne is similar to rigatoni. Also tubular and lined on the outside. It's my second choice for any baked pasta dish. It's a little less "substantial" than rigatoni. 

When combining cheeses, look for flavor and texture complementation. Pecorino Romano is a salty hard cheese (made from sheep’s milk) that adds just that extra bite without being overwhelming.
 
Because it’s a hard cheese, it's not the best melting cheese. That's why when using a hard cheese in a pasta al forno dish, finely grate the cheese so it won't leave any clumps in the sauce by not melting enough. You can substitute Pecorino Romano with Parmigiano Reggiano. Or you can mix the two.

⭐ Tip: I highly recommend not using pre-shredded cheese. Pre-shredded cheese comes with additives and preservatives that prevent the cheese from getting hard. Unfortunately, they also prevent the cheese from melting smoothly. 

When it comes to melting cheese on top, fresh mozzarella cheese is my #1 choice. It melts deliciously, doesn't add any more saltiness, and will make these long gooey cheese strings between the plate and your mouth. A gooey, fresh mozzarella, perfectly baked, should be able to keep it together for longer than your arm can reach up. 

Remember that perfect pizza you had. You take a bite and try to put the slice back on the plate, but the cheese won't disconnect between your mouth and slice. You start stretching the slice of pizza away from your body. You reach the end of your stretch and the cheese is still connected. That's good mozzarella. Don't forget that with mozzarella: you get what you pay for. 

If you're not into mozzarella like we are, try Gouda, provolone, or fontina. Or experiment with something different.

Again, that's a question of personal preference. I mostly use ground beef. Sometimes I mix ground beef with ground pork. Using sweet Italian sausage is also delicious. And if you feel like kicking it up a notch, go with hot Italian sausage.

No problem. Instead of using meat, use eggplant or mushrooms. If you want to enjoy a basic pasta al forno, leave the meat out, and add more mozzarella and a whole bunch of roughly chopped fresh basil. 

That's a tough one. We grow our own tomatoes. So we cook everything with fresh tomatoes anywhere from the end of June until the end of August. For the rest of the year, it's canned tomatoes. To keep the pantry simple, I use canned San Marzano whole plum tomatoes. You can make any tomato-based sauce using whole plum tomatoes. To increase the flavor, tomato paste and/or anchovy paste are other pantry staples. 

Every good pasta sauce has one ingredient we often neglect: pasta water. It starts with salting the water with enough salt that it tastes like the sea. Well, not really. But under-salted pasta water will turn out flat-tasting pasta that no sauce or cheese can perk back up. 

There are guidelines online that tell you how many tablespoons per gallon to achieve the desired salinity. There's one problem with that.

Every salt adds a different amount of saltiness. Diamond kosher salt is different from Maldon salt and so on. While the pasta is cooking, the water will absorb the starch from the pasta to make a tasty liquid (we like to call it liquid gold). Adding a ¼ c or so of this water to a sauce will not only season the sauce, but also help the sauce stick to the pasta better. 

⭐ Tip: It happens to all of us. We're planning to use pasta water as part of the sauce, only to rush to drain the pasta and suddenly…. yup, there goes the pasta water down the drain. Here's a neat trick for all of us not-so-perfect cooks: before you start cooking, place the pasta strainer or colander on top of a bowl in the sink. That way, when you're ready to drain the pasta (and forget to save the pasta water), the bowl will catch it for you. You can also just put a measuring cup on the bottom of the colander. That'll work fine too.

While cooking, there are good times to taste and to decide if a dish needs more salt. Salt is what brings out the flavors, makes them more prominent. It's vital when creating a rich yet subtly flavored sauce like this one. Sometimes it can be hard to figure out the right amount of salt to add. An excellent trick I learned from the book Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat works like magic:

Put a little bit of sauce on a spoon and taste it. Again, put a little bit of sauce on the spoon. But this time, add a tiny sprinkle of salt. Is it tastier this time? No? Serve. Yes? Add some salt to the pan and try again. Repeat as necessary. From now on, your soups, stews, and sauces will always be perfectly salted. Thank you, Samin!

Yes, you can make a large batch and put it in the freezer. Thaw it, mix in the grated cheese and cooked pasta, sprinkle mozzarella on top, and bake in the oven for 10 minutes longer because the pasta sauce will be cold. 

Oven-baked dishes should be reheated in the oven, not in the microwave. Reheat in the toaster oven for 10 minutes at 300°F. Just like lasagne al forno or rigatoni al forno, anything al forno tastes better the second day. Or the third.