Spaghetti Pie. The End.
I’m definitely resisting the urge to add 27 more descriptors to the name of this recipe. Perfect Baked Spaghetti Pie // Sticky Spaghetti Pie with Marinara // Garlic Marinara Spaghetti Pie with Pan Sauteed Vegetables and Fresh Herbs. It’s a disease. MAKE IT STOP. We only need to call this what it is –> Spaghetti (delicious tasty can’t get enough I even like to eat it cold for breakfast) Pie.
Ever since I’ve started food blogging, I have had this awful mind obsession about naming recipes. It’s almost impossible (today being the rare proof that it is, in fact, possible, because I was starting to wonder) for me to call my recipes by normal-people-food-names. Like “chocolate cookies” – two words – would never be okay for me. They’d have to be Thick and Fudgy Double Chocolate Chip Cookies. As if in my normal life I’d say, Hey guys! Should I make another batch of the Thick and Fudgy Double Chocolate Chip Cookies? Annnd as if in my normal like I’d be asking anyone to help me make a decision about whether or not I should make another batch of cookies.
Which reminds me, in a backwards kind of way, we’re kind of going to try living without refined sugar for the next little while. <– I don’t even know.
How To Make Our Spaghetti Pie (1 MIN):
I was originally inspired to make this when Bjork took me to a brunch cooking class a few weekends ago on his romantically planned “Date Day”. Aw, so sweet, right?
The chef blew my mind when he told us we were going to add cooked spaghetti to the egg and spinach frittata. I was so insanely hungry by this point, because when I go to a brunch cooking class and it starts at 10:30, I assume I’m going to be munching on bacon and pastries and such cooking class things all through the morning so I tragically skip breakfast, but then I realize that we actually have to cook the food (oh yeah, cooking class) before we can eat it, and suddenly it’s lunchtime and then not only am I all crabby about my decision to skip breakfast but I’m also acting a little weird because I’m completely tunnel-vision-hungry. So when the egg and spinach and spaghetti noodle frittata came out of the oven, I pounced. It was so so so so so good that I literally made my own version within 24 hours of the class. My brain: more noodles, more noodles, more noodles.
This isn’t the chef’s recipe because a) I accidentally left my recipe packet sitting on the table like a total dum-dum, b) I like to blaze my own food trails instead of strictly following recipes, and c) I didn’t want it to be breakfasty like the one from cooking class. I wanted it to be like dinnertime Spaghetti, but as a Pie. Spaghetti Pie. Get it?
So today it’s just you and me and two-word SPAGHETTI PIE. That’s all. Plain and simple, with good old jarred tomato sauce – or homemade if you’re the cool kid on the block who makes their own tomato sauce and who I aspire to be when I grow up – and creamy, melty cheese and sticky, dense noodles (noodle crust? no?) that will blow the lid off of your preconceived notions of regular Whitey McWhite Spaghetti Noodles. Not that you couldn’t use whole wheat. I actually wanted to use whole wheat (avoiding refined sugars? yeah whole wheatie) but all I had was this huge package of white spaghetti noodles that I bought at Costco when I was pretending that I had a family of 17 people to feed. So we’ll be working our way through this package for a while and meanwhile, you go get yourself some whole wheat if that’s what’s up for you in the food dept.
Even though it seems like it might be kind of boring (spaghetti noodles baked in a dish, I know I know I know), what you need to know is that the name of the game here is texture. Ohhhh the sweet, satisfying feeling of cutting yourself a slice – not a bite but literally a big, dense slice – of spaghetti noodles. It’s like when all the leftover mac and cheese noodles get stuck together and you eat those cheesy noodle clumps in a mad rush, even though you’re not even in a hurry, because for some reason they are so much more satisfying that the individual noodles and they must be eaten at intense top speeds. No? Just me?
If you’re up for chewy, saucy, dense, velvety, thick, noodley, creamy, and delicious sorts of textures, this = you.
The super packed, dense noodle base is made sticky and thick and creamy with ricotta cheese, a few eggs, and some aromatic sauteed veggies and herbs. Then it’s topped with sauce and cheese and herbs and more cheese because imma blog the heck outta this thing and I must must must sprinkle little decorative foodstuffs on everything.
Someone please just give me a spaghetti pie in the face right now for being so obnoxious.
No, like, PLEEZE.
Spaghetti Pie
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Yield: 8 1x
Description
This Spaghetti Pie is beautifully simple comfort food! Spaghetti noodles are baked into a pie and topped with sauce and melted cheese.
Ingredients
- 1 lb. uncooked spaghetti
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 yellow onion
- 2 cloves of garlic (optional)
- 3 stalks of celery
- 3 carrots
- 1 handful of spinach
- 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- tiny tiny sprinkle of nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 15 ounces part skim ricotta cheese
- 2 eggs, beaten (see notes)
- 3–4 cups of your favorite tomato sauce (see notes)
- 1 cup shredded cheese, like Mozzarella
- parsley and Parmesan for topping
Instructions
- Cook the spaghetti according to package directions. Drain and set aside to cool.
- Mince the onion, garlic, celery, and carrots. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet; add the onion and saute for 5 minutes. Add the garlic, celery, and carrots; saute for another 5 minutes. Add the spinach and cook until wilted. Stir in the spices and set aside to cool.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the ricotta and eggs together. Toss the cooked noodles with the vegetable mixture and the ricotta mixture. Transfer to a greased pie dish (mine was 9 inches – you could also just use a 9×13 rectangular pan). The mixture will be heaping in the dish. Top with the sauce and the cheese and cover with oiled aluminum foil so the cheese doesn’t stick. Bake for 20 minutes; remove foil and bake for an additional 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and let stand for 5-10 minutes to soak up any excess moisture. Top with parsley and Parmesan. Cut into wedges or scoop out with a spoon and serve.
Notes
You may need extra olive oil to toss with the noodles so they don’t stick together.
Adding one or two more eggs will give the whole thing a little more firmness and help it hold together better. Two eggs was enough for me, but if you really want to get the pie effect and you don’t mind a little extra eggy-ness, you could use three or four eggs.
I used a Kirkland brand marinara sauce that has lots of real tomatoes and garlic, and no funky ingredients or added sugar. Yey! Use more sauce to top each individual piece if you luv sauce like me.
- Prep Time: 20 mins
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: Italian
Keywords: spaghetti pie, spaghetti in pie, spaghetti recipe
