Heat up a skillet with butter and melt it. Stir in flour and mix it quickly into the butter over a low heat setting. This is the base, a roux.
Pour in some milk and keep on mixing, heat the skillet a little more (low to medium setting). Add all the milk until it's all used up so that the sauce thickens ad gets smoother in consistency.
Stir in the marinara tomato sauce. Keep over a low to medium heat setting.
Add the cream cheese and 4 other grated cheese. Mix it all in over the heat.
Season with black pepper, salt, onion powder, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning. You can substitute the Italian seasoning with oregano.
Mix it all up, stirring over a lower heat setting. The sauce should be velvety smooth and well combined in consistency.
To bake
Preheat oven to 375 Fahrenheit/ 190 Celsius.
Place cooked strained ziti pasta into a rectangular baking dish.
Pour cheese sauce over the pasta and mix it all in so that the pasta is well coated.
Top with grated cheese.
Bake for about 15 minutes at 375 Fahrenheit/ 190 Celsius or until the top is crispy baked. I like to use the broiler setting for that.
Serve up hot with freshly chopped parsley.
Video
Notes
8 ounces/230 grams makes about ½ a pack ziti noodles.
plain marinara sauce is also called tomato passata
combine the cheese quantities to your liking, I used about the same quantity of mozzarella, parmesan, fontina, and emmental. Sometimes I use cheddar instead of emmental.