Chicken Parmesan Baked Ziti

The coldest week of the year. Hartford in January is a weather personality disorder — sunshine at 8 AM, blizzard at noon, ice storm by 4 PM, and by the time you go to bed you have shoveled the driveway three times and you hate everyone who ever moved to Connecticut voluntarily, including yourself. I moved here in 1988 following Eduardo's cousin and his insurance job and it was the right decision and I have regretted it every January for thirty-four years. Both things can be true.

When Hartford gets mean, I make asopao. Asopao de pollo, the rice stew that is not quite soup and not quite rice but the best of both — thick and warm and loud with sofrito, with chicken on the bone because chicken on the bone is the only chicken that makes a decent broth, with green olives stuffed with pimiento, with cilantro from the sad herb planter I keep on the windowsill even though nothing grows in a Hartford January.

I made a pot on Tuesday when the high was eighteen degrees and the wind was doing that thing where it sounds like a woman screaming through the storm windows. Eduardo came home from his walk — he walks every day, two miles, in weather that would kill a lesser man — and his eyebrows had ice in them, actual ice, white crystals on his actual eyebrows, and I laughed at him and poured him a bowl and he sat at the counter and thawed out over the asopao and the asopao did its work.

This is why the recipe exists. Island people in cold countries needed a food that could argue with a blizzard. Asopao argues. It wins.

Wednesday Mami's heat went out in her apartment — the building's old boiler having a tantrum — and I drove over at 6 AM with the remaining asopao and two of Eduardo's winter blankets. She was cold but fine, wrapped in three sweaters, watching the Spanish news, complaining. I fed her and stayed with her until the super got the boiler running by 10 AM. While we waited she told me stories about the winter of 1978 in Bayamón, which was unusually cold for Puerto Rico — sixty degrees at night, which is a crisis by San Juan standards — and she made everyone wear sweaters and nobody could believe how cold it was. I laughed and she said, "Don't laugh, Carmen, cold is relative." She is right. Cold is relative. Sixty degrees is cold when your blood is Caribbean.

Saturday night Eduardo and I ate the last of the asopao in front of the news. The rice had absorbed all the broth by then — asopao on day three becomes arroz con pollo, which is its own wonderful thing, but different. I told Eduardo, "This is the magic of rice. It keeps learning." He said, "You are the magic. The rice just does what it is told." Fifty years of marriage and the man still knows which buttons to push. Wepa.

Asopao is what I make when the cold is personal — when it is my kitchen, my driveway, my storm windows howling. But when the cold is someone else’s emergency, when Mami’s boiler quits and you are driving across Hartford before sunrise with blankets in the back seat, you want something that holds together in a pot, reheats without argument, and feeds a stubborn woman in three sweaters without her having to do a single thing. This Chicken Parmesan Baked Ziti is that dish — the one I make in a big casserole when someone else needs the warmth more than I do, because it travels, it keeps, and it asks nothing of whoever receives it except a fork.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 lb ziti pasta
1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 jar (24 oz) marinara sauce
1 can (14.5 oz) crushed tomatoes
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 cups shredded whole-milk mozzarella, divided
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, divided
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, torn, plus more for serving
1/2 cup Italian-style breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking dish with cooking spray or a light coat of olive oil and set aside.
Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the ziti 2 minutes less than the package directions (it will finish cooking in the oven). Drain and set aside, reserving 1/2 cup of pasta water.
Brown the chicken. While the pasta cooks, heat olive oil in a large oven-safe skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Season the chicken pieces with Italian seasoning, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until golden and just cooked through, about 6–8 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more. Remove from heat.
Build the sauce. Add the marinara sauce, crushed tomatoes, and chicken broth to the skillet with the chicken. Stir to combine, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom. If the sauce seems thick, loosen it with the reserved pasta water a splash at a time.
Combine. Add the drained ziti, 1 cup of the mozzarella, 1/2 cup of the Parmesan, the ricotta, and the fresh basil to the skillet. Fold everything together gently until the pasta is evenly coated and the cheeses are distributed throughout.
Transfer and top. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish and spread evenly. Scatter the remaining 1 cup of mozzarella and 1/4 cup of Parmesan over the top. In a small bowl, stir together the breadcrumbs and melted butter until the crumbs are evenly moistened, then sprinkle the mixture over the cheese layer.
Bake covered. Cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 20 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling around the edges.
Uncover and brown. Remove the foil and continue baking for 15–20 minutes more, until the breadcrumb topping is deep golden brown and the cheese is bubbly. If you want more color on top, run it under the broiler for 2–3 minutes — watch it closely.
Rest and serve. Let the ziti rest for 10 minutes before serving. Scatter fresh basil over the top and bring the whole casserole dish to the table. It reheats beautifully the next day — add a splash of water or broth before covering with foil to keep it from drying out.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chicken Parmesan Baked Ziti — The Warmth You Bring to Someone Else’s Cold House