How To Make Baked Spaghetti

• Spaghetti: With its long strands, spaghetti might be a left-field choice for a pasta casserole, but I challenge anybody to gainsay the results!
• Olive oil: You’ll never go wrong using extra-virgin olive oil to cook aromatics for tomato-based pasta dishes. The oil has a peppery, slightly bitter quality that almost acts as a seasoning, balancing the acidity of tomatoes and making them taste sweeter and more rounded.
• Onion & Garlic: Cooking the onion and garlic in olive oil until soft and sweet lays an aromatic foundation for the sauce.
• Ground Beef: I prefer to use leaner ground beef here, since all the fat is going to wind up in the finished dish. Ninety percent lean is ideal.
• Tomatoes: I use both crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce in meat sauce here. The crushed tomatoes form the base of the sauce and provide some texture, while the tomato sauce brings tons of tons of flavor and richness to the party—and saves you the trouble of making your own.
• Basil: I love to use fresh basil whenever tomatoes are in play, but feel free to omit it if you don’t have any on-hand. The Italian seasoning will cover the gap.
• Mozzarella & Parmesan: I use low-moisture mozzarella to bring the ooey-gooey and freshly grated Parmesan to dial the flavor up to eleven with a hit of umami. Word to the wise: Pre-grated Parm may be convenient, but it is a pale, desiccated imitation of stuff you grate fresh. Do yourself a favor in buy your Parm by the block.

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS

First order of business: Preheat your oven to 350° and prep your baking dish. Grab a medium baking dish—AKA a 13″ x 9″ or 2-qt. baking dish—and spray it with cooking spray. Second order of business: Cook the spaghetti. My best advice on this: Follow your package directions, seriously. Oh, and don’t forget to stir occasionally so the spaghetti doesn’t stick together (not good).

While the spaghetti is cooling, get to work on the meat sauce—you’ll need a large, deep skillet for this. Start by cooking the onion in some olive oil until you can kind of see through it. Use medium heat for this and stir often—you don’t want to brown the onion, just cook it until it’s soft and sweet. Add the garlic and cook just until it’s fragrant. Now it’s time to bring the meat into play. Add the ground beef, sprinkle with the Italian seasoning, and season generously with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring and breaking up the ground beef with a wooden spoon, until the beef is no longer pink.

Now let’s turn this into a sauce! Pour in the crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce; add the basil. Bring to simmer and cook, stirring occasionally until the sauce has thicken slightly and some beads of oil appear on the surface. This should take about 10 minutes, but give it the time it needs—reducing the sauce is critical to creating depth of flavor.

Spaghetti, meet tomato sauce; tomato sauce, meet spaghetti. Toss the two together until the spaghetti is well coated.

Transfer the spaghetti and meat sauce to the prepared baking dish and spread out into a roughly even layer.

Bring on the cheese! Scatter the mozzarella evenly over the spaghetti, then do the same with the Parmesan.

Transfer the baking dish to the oven and bake until the cheese is melted and browned in spots and the spaghetti is heated through, about 20 minutes. Garnish with parsley for a fresh touch and you’re ready to serve!

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