Baked spaghetti is a lot like lasagna, only less work. It calls for noodles, sauce and cheese, and it's enormously satisfying. Sadly, we've been without baked spaghetti at our house for almost 10 years, because the recipe I always used was lost in our move to our current home.
Sure, there are a zillion recipes for baked spaghetti out there, but I wanted one that closely replicated our family's favorite. At last, this weekend, I cracked the code. I found a recipe online, made it my own, and last night, Todd and I feasted on the results, which were delicious.
I'm sharing the recipe today, but before I get to it, some notes. First, if you usually doctor up your bottled sauce with extra spices, peppers, garlic, etc., feel free to do the same with this sauce. And if you'd like more sauce, as we always do, feel free to add another quarter or half jar of sauce.
Second, don't use lean beef with this. It will get too dry and hard when you're done crumbling and browning it. You could even cook crumbled Italian sausage instead.
Next, although you shouldn't usually run cold water over cooked pasta, you must for this recipe. Otherwise, when you add the pasta to the eggs, they will scramble, which you don't want for this recipe. And the eggs are essential to this dish. They help keep the noodles from drying out.
Finally, I hate cottage cheese, so we used Ricotta. Choose whichever you have or prefer. Both will work.
Here's the recipe.
At Last! Baked Spaghetti
1 pound hamburger meat
1 chopped onion
1 jar marinara sauce (24 oz.)
1 full box spaghetti
½ cup grated Parmesan
2 eggs
6 tablespoons butter, melted
4 cups shredded Mozzarella
2 cups Ricotta
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook spaghetti according to box directions. While it's cooking, brown meat with onion until cooked through. Drain. Add the sauce to the meat, plus spices, if you'd like.
Mix the eggs, melted butter and Parmesan together. Once the pasta is done, add it to this mixture and stir gently to coat all the strands.
Now, into a greased 13 by 9 inch casserole dish, put have the spaghetti mixture. Then put half the Ricotta, half the meat sauce and half the Mozzarella. Repeat.
Cook, covered, for about 40 minutes. Remove cover and cook for about 15-20 minutes more until cheese on top is nicely melted and browned to your liking.
Let this lovely casserole rest for at least 15 minutes, then dig in.
Yum! And it tastes even better the next day.
If you'd like to share your own home memories or tips (or recipes), send ideas to tkwolford@aol.com. Or you can write me via traditional mail at The Farmer's Exchange, P.O. Box 45, New Paris, IN 46553.