Rigatoni Pie is a visually stunning and super delicious baked pasta dish. Made by placing rigatoni upright in a springform pan, stuffed with flavorful herbed ricotta, topped with meat sauce and mozzarella, then baked to perfection.
The pasta
Use the largest rigatoni shaped pasta you can find. The reason for this is so that it’s easier to pipe the ricotta mixture into them. The smaller they are the harder they will be to fill. I use paccheri pasta when I can find them but when I can’t get my hands on them I use manicotti shells and cook them the same way as directed in the recipe but I snip them in half and each manicotti becomes two pieces of pasta. I place the straight cut edges down on the pan and they sit up just beautifully.
How to Serve It and Reheat It
Want to keep your rigatoni pasta standing up? Then you’ll need to give it time to cool down, which is really no different than any other baked pasta dish. Rigatoni pie needs to cool for a minimum of 20 minutes. In my experience, I found that letting it cool for 30 minutes ensures it will keep its shape nicely when slicing.
This means you won’t be serving it when it’s steaming, but instead it will be pleasantly warm.
Serve the rigatoni pie with additional warmed meat sauce and a sprinkle of basil or other fresh Italian herbs of parmesan cheese.
Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 lb of ground meat
- ½ lb Italian sausage – casings removed
- 1 onion peeled and diced
- 3 cloves garlic peeled and minced
- ¼ tsp of chili pepper flakes (optional)
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