*Use gluten-free spaghetti if you prefer.
Happy Fall/Autumn and October! I am so excited to share this dish. If you want a fall dinner, you can’t go wrong with spaghetti. Growing up, my mother cooked spaghetti and baked spaghetti at least twice per month. We never grew tired of it because she had the most amazing sauce and she always used angel hair pasta. While I have not been able to recreate her sauce (I always joke that she left out an ingredient on purpose), I have created a sauce that is my family’s favorite.
In my house, we have a pasta dish every Monday. Monday kicks off the school and work week and pasta just brings comfort. So this day, I am sharing one of our family recipes, sauce and all. If you are new to this site, know that my husband is allergic to onions, but not garlic (thank goodness), so my recipes do not have onion in them. This recipe looks like bakes spaghetti, but it does not go in the oven. Here we go!
Ingredients (two dinners for family of 4)
Angel hair pasta (1/2 of a standard box). Cook in boiling water for about 8-10 minutes until it is as soft as you want (not too soft).
Sauce
*Add 1 pound of cooked, ground beef (or ground chicken) to the sauce and stir. In the ground beef, I add a sprinkle of (1/2 tsp) salt, (1/4 tsp) pepper, and (1tsp) garlic powder. Cook the entire pot of meat sauce on low (rolling boil) for 25 minutes.
Once the meat sauce is complete, add the pasta to the pot and fold over (don’t toss) until the pasta is coated in the sauce. Turn the stove top off and cover the spaghetti with your cheese of choice. Cover the pot and let it sit for 5-10 minutes.
After the time is done, you’ve got a great meal. In the summer, I serve this with salad. In the fall and winter, this is served with peas or green beans.
*Side note: To stretch the meat, use 1/2 of a pound of beef and either add a drained can of black beans or a package of crumbled soy meat. They are less expensive and they blend well with the spaghetti ingredients.
Enjoy!
