Traditional Side Salad

• Some traditional Italian side salads include ingredients like goat cheese and oil-soaked bread, but when you're preparing baked ziti as your main course, choose something lighter. The ziti already has a generous amount of cheese melted on top, and if your salad is cheesy, too, it could be too intense for the palate. Instead, make a small traditional salad of a different sort, using ingredients like crunchy lettuce, roasted red peppers, plum tomatoes and Italian dressing. The crunch of the lettuce and the tangy dressing wake up your palate and create a pleasant contrast from the soft texture and sweet flavor of the ziti.

Garlic Bread

• Many people expect garlic bread to accompany pasta dishes. This classic companion pairs perfectly with baked ziti, giving you something to dip in your extra sauce -- you can even pile your ziti on top of a slice and eat it that way. Instead of breadsticks, which have a crusty outside that makes it difficult to soak up sauce, prepare garlic bread using a sliced baguette. This gives you a broad, flat surface perfect for spreading with garlic butter before you bake it -- and for absorbing marinara later.

Wine Pairing

• Baked ziti is a heavy and boldly sweet dish, so pair it with a wine that is neither too robust nor too sweet. Instead of Chianti or cabernet, pair your entree with pinot noir, which balances a silky, medium body with acidity that cuts through the sweetness of your marinara sauce. Pinot noir makes a suitable accompaniment to baked ziti -- it's bold enough to stand up to the dish's rich flavors, but not so strong as to overshadow them.

Italian Desserts

• Complementary desserts for ziti should be sweet and light. A light tiramisu, for example, combines the sweet custard and espresso flavoring of the traditional dish without the overwhelming body -- choose a recipe that emphasizes the taste of the espresso and the texture of the ladyfingers, rather than the creamy custard. Alternatively, traditional Italian fruit sorbet may be the best way to end your meal. A light, tart palate-cleanser, sorbet finishes on a sweet note without being overwhelmingly sugary.