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Change up your typical spaghetti dinner with this easy and delicious baked spaghetti.
Spaghetti is one of my favorite childhood food memories. It was one of my mom’s go to meals when we were growing up. Today’s recipe is a fun twist on my favorite homemade Spaghetti and Meat Sauce. Instead of the usual ground beef, I spice it up with some ground Italian sausage.
Make Ahead Dinner
Baked spaghetti is easy, delicious and fun to eat. The process is simple and can easily be done ahead of time and refrigerated to make dinner time easier. It is layered with spaghetti noodles, cheese and meat sauce. This recipe does use small curd cottage cheese and I have to tell you I am NOT a fan of cottage cheese, but I promise you will never know there is cottage cheese in this!
How to make Baked Spaghetti
- Make the meat sauce.
- Cook your spaghetti noodles to an al dente stage. Not too soft. You don’t want them getting mushy when you bake them in the oven.
- Layer half of the noodles in the bottom of a greased pan. Then layer in half of the meat sauce mixture. Followed by all of the cottage cheese and half of the shredded cheese.
- Repeat the process, except without the cottage cheese. There is only one layer of cottage cheese.
- At this point you can put it in the refrigerator to bake later in the evening or even the next day. Or put it right in the oven.
- Bake at 350 degrees F covered with foil for 35 minutes. Remove the foil and bake an additional 20 minutes.
You can use a big spoon to serve it or cut it into pieces with a knife and scoop it out with a spatula.
And the final step? Serve and enjoy!
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Baked Spaghetti
Ingredients
- 1 lb. spaghetti noodles
- 1 lb. mild Italian sausage
- 1 cup onion chopped
- 1 jar 32 oz. of your favorite meatless spaghetti sauce or homemade version
- 1/2 tsp seasoned salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese grated
- 2 eggs
- 4 Tbsp. butter melted
- 1 cup small curd cottage cheese
- 2 cups mozzarella cheese shredded
- 2 cups Italian blend cheese I used Monterey Jack and Colby, shredded
- 1 tsp basil
- 1/2 tsp oregano
- 1 tsp parsley
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Grease a 9 x 13 pan
- Cook spaghetti in boiling water until al dente.
- In a large pan cook sausage and onion until meat is browned and onion is soft. Drain
- Stir in spaghetti sauce and seasoned salt and sugar if you’d like sauce a bit sweeter like I do.. If using a store bought sauce I like to add some extra spice – add in basil, oregano and parsley.
- Mix together eggs, Parmesan cheese and butter in a bowl.
- Mix in spaghetti noodles and stir to coat.
- Place half of noodles in bottom of baking dish
- Top with cottage cheese and half of the other two cheeses.
- Top that with half of meat sauce.
- Place remaining noodles on top.
- Top with remaining meat sauce.
- Top with remaining cheese.
- Cover with foil and bake for 35 minutes.
- Remove foil and continue to bake until cheese is melted and golden brown. About 20 minutes
Tammy says
Making this right now. Sugar is listed but not when to use it. So I add it to the Spaghetti sauce?
Leigh Anne says
Sorry about that – you are right. It was a last minute addition I made because I used sauce from a jar and I like my sauce a bit sweeter. If I were making my own sauce I wouldn’t add it because I already add sugar in. Thanks – I’ll fix the recipe
Tammy A says
I can’t wait to try this! I have the next 5 days off from work so this WILL BE cooked within the next day or two!! Looks wonderful! I’m a new follower so I’ll be seeing what else from your blog I can make! Cooking/baking is my PASSION! Love to try new recipes!!
Leigh Anne says
So glad you found the blog! Enjoy cooking!
Amy Huntley@theidearoom.net says
Can’t wait to try this recipe out on my family! Pinned!
Mike says
I’ve done this but found I like Ricotta cheese better than cottage cheese.
(Happy experiment).
Leigh Anne says
I will have to try it with ricotta next time. Thanks
Diane Harris says
Can the baked spaghetti be prepared ahead and then frozen?
Leigh Anne says
I am sure it would freeze great.