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If you love Italian dishes like traditional baked ziti, then you are going to love this crockpot baked ziti recipe. It has all of the tastes of a baked ziti recipe but is a great way to make it for busy weeknights when you aren’t home and still want the best comfort food you know the whole family will enjoy. 

​This crock pot baked ziti recipe has plenty of sauce, meat, cheese, and of course Italian flavors and cheese. Plus, with only a few minutes of prep work, you can have an easy weeknight dinner ready for when you get home. 

Then all you need to do is decide what you want to serve with this cheesy baked ziti recipe. I love breadsticks or garlic bread and a simple side salad with this hearty meal! 

Ingredients for Slow Cooker Baked Ziti:

• Meat: for amazing flavor, I like to use ground Italian sausage
• Onion: use either a yellow or white onion chopped
• Seasonings: you’ll need to have minced garlic, salt, black pepper, and dried basil
• Tomatoes: Italian-style diced tomatoes help make this easy slow cooker recipe stand out
• Sauce: you will need to have a jar of your favorite marinara sauce
• Liquid: you can use either water or chicken broth in addition to the meat sauce
• Pasta: I like to use ziti noodles but you can use other kinds of dry pasta as well

How to make this Slow Cooker Baked Ziti:

Add the sausage to a large skillet over medium heat and brown. Once cooked through, remove any grease from the pan.

Add the sausage to a large slow cooker along with the diced onion, minced garlic, diced tomatoes, seasonings, marinara sauce, and water. Stir well.

Cook on LOW for 7 hours or HIGH for 4 hours.

Turn slow cooker to high and stir in the uncooked ziti pasta. Let cook for an additional 16-35 minutes or until the pasta is cooked. This may vary depending on your slow cooker. Sprinkle the cheese on top and stir in once melted. Serve and enjoy!

Tips and tricks for slow cooker recipes with pasta:

Can you cook pasta in a slow cooker?

Yes, you can! But you want to not the timing for the noodles. Towards the end of the cooking time you’ll want to turn your slow cooker back up to high, add your uncooked pasta, and watch it, because every slow cooker cooks things a little bit differently. 

Yours could cook the pasta to al dente perfection in as little as 10 minutes, but it could take upwards of 30 minutes. 

I would suggest setting a timer and checking every 3-5 minutes to check on your pasta’s progress. Once you figure out how long it takes, you can always know exactly how long to set your timer.

Why do I need to add water or chicken broth? 

When you’re making crock pot recipes with uncooked pasta in them you need to make sure that there is enough liquid in the bottom of the slow cooker for the pasta to absorb to become tender while they cook.

Make clean-up a breeze: 

Since the goal of this recipe is to make an easy dinner, why not keep clean up easy too! All you need to do is add a slow cooker liner to the bottom of the slow cooker before you begin. 

Then when you are done eating, remove it, throw the liner in the trash, and wipe out the slow cooker and you are done! This might just be the best part of this delicious slow cooker recipe. An easy dinner is great, but no dishes to do? Even better!

Slow Cooker Pasta Recipes

• Stuffed Shells – Slow Cooker
• Slow Cooker Creamy Mac and Cheese
• Slow Cooker Buffalo Wild Wings Garlic Parmesan Chicken Pasta

Quick links for making dinner easy:

• Family meal plans
• Tools for the kitchen and more
• The best cookbook for family dinner recipes
• FREE budget meal plan
• Cooking videos to watch

If you give these recipes a try, make sure to tag us on Instagram @julia.pacheco.cooking and let us know how much you liked the recipes!