Spaghetti is a household favorite for me and my husband! This classic meal is quick, easy and guaranteed to be a hit with your family.
Serve spaghetti alone, or with some homemade sourdough on the side and your favorite vegetable.
This easy convenient dish is for you!
Spaghetti is Simple
When you really simplify it, spaghetti is just seasoned tomato sauce, ground meat and cooked noodles.
Spaghetti noodles are traditionally thin, long noodles and are typically branded spaghetti noodles. However, if you are in a pinch or just want to change things up you can substitute a variety of different pasta. I also change it up sometimes and use, bow-tie, cavatappi, and linguine, instead of spaghetti noodles.
Choose your ground meat. I usually use ground beef, though I also substitute ground venison, elk and antelope to add a little variety to the dish. You can also use ground Italian sausage, this switch adds a spice to your spaghetti.
Finally, choose your sauce! I now prefer to make my own sauce, however, that is a new thing for me. I used to buy my pasta sauce from the grocery store, prioritizing quality, clean ingredients.
When I make spaghetti, it generally comes together within 30 minutes.
Save time
Spaghetti started out in our house as just a quick and easy meal to make when I’m tired and don’t have the creativity or the time to make something more elaborate. I started out using the cheapest canned pasta sauce, ground beef and noodles I could afford (and there is nothing wrong with that!).
Along the way I learned if I make the entire box of spaghetti noodles I have enough to feed us for a few days, ultimately saving me money and time.
Quality ingredients for Spaghetti
My spaghetti quality has evolved and improved over the last two years when I started using better quality ingredients.
I now use grass-fed, grass-finished ground beef. In order to make this switch more economical my fiance and I invested in half a cow that was grass-fed, grass-finished, and local to our area. Our half of a cow resulted in over 75 lbs of ground beef that I now use in my spaghetti, plus many other meals. My fiance and I are also hunters (new and still learning) so we also switch things up by using ground elk, ground antelope, and ground venison instead of ground beef. These switches are still highly nutritional and are great sources of iron!
My latest improvement to the quality of my spaghetti is making my own pasta sauce from garden fresh tomatoes and herbs. I had no experience making pasta sauce but I had a garden that produced over 180 lbs of tomatoes and something needed to be done with them! This change is one of my greatest accomplishments in the garden, kitchen and food preservation skills!
Notes: If you have an italian seasoning blend in your spice cabinet, go ahead and use that to season your ground meat.
I generally only use red meat in my spaghetti, however I have seen spaghetti be made with ground chicken and ground turkey before. Don’t be afraid to mix things up!
Tools you will need on hand
Medium to large pot for boiling water and cooking pasta
Colander for straining your noodles
A skillet – for browning meat (I prefer my cast iron skillet for this)
Stirring spoons
Ingredients you will need
Spaghetti/Pasta sauce
The canned tomato sauce recipe I used: Basil-Garlic Tomato Sauce Recipe | Ball® Mason Jars
If you want to make your own sauce this is a recipe of mine that I just throw together in the blender before mixing with the meat mixture:
- 1 – 6 ounce can tomato paste
- 1 16 ounce can of tomato sauce
- ¼ finely diced onion or 2 teaspoons onion powder
- 3 garlic cloves or 2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon basil
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
Note: if you are using powdered onion and garlic you can skip the blender.
Instructions
- Cook those noodles. Get your water on to boil, make sure to add a little bit of salt in the water. Once at a rolling boil cook your noodles per the directions on the packaging.
- Brown the meat. While waiting for your water to come to a boil, start browning the meat. Use a medium to large skillet and don’t forget to season the meat!
- Grab your jar of spaghetti sauce and combine with the ground meat.
- Once cooked, strain your noodles and combine all three of the components to finish off the meal! Or you can leave the noodles separate from your meat sauce mixture and serve meat sauce on top of the noodles at serving time.
Questions
Is there a right and wrong way to make spaghetti?
No, I don’t think so. It seems that nowadays everyone has their own variation and preference on how to make spaghetti.
Do I have to make my own spaghetti sauce?
No, you do not need to make your own pasta sauce to make a good batch of spaghetti. You can use canned sauce from the grocery store. I make my own because I have a garden that produces a lot of tomatoes.
Isn’t making homemade pasta sauce time consuming?
Yes, this task took several days to get all of the tomatoes processed. However, once the processing is done the process for making spaghetti has not changed!
Why do you season the ground meat?
Seasoning the ground meat ensures your spaghetti is not bland. The seasoning in the sauce alone is not enough to flavor the whole dish.
Quick and Easy Spaghetti
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Fill a pot of water with filtered water and add about 1 teaspoon of salt to the water.
- Set your pot on the stove with the lid on and turn heat onto high to bring your water to a boil.
- Once your water is at a boil, add your pasta and cook per the directions on the box.
- While waiting for your water to boil. Preheat a medium skillet over medium heat.
- Once the skillet is heated add olive oil to the pan and add your ground meat, cook until browned. Break up bigger meat chunks during this time.
- When your meat is finally browned add in the diced onion, stirring often until onions become translucent. About 5 minutes.
- Add your seasonings and minced garlic to the ground meat, stirring to incorporate.
- Taste your ground meat to make sure it is seasoned to your liking.
- Combine pasta sauce with ground meat in the skillet.
- When pasta is at desired tenderness, strain with a colander, try to preserve a little bit of the pasta water, this helps the sauce adhere to the noodles better.
- Either combine noodles and meat sauce mixture in one pot or keep separate, to serve the pasta sauce on top of your noodles once plated.
- Top with your favorite garnish: parsley, parmesan cheese or as is.
- Enjoy!
Easy to follow recipe and it turned out delicious! I’ll be sharing with my sister!