10 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR SPAGHETTI

Spaghetti is so easy to make that I found myself making it at least once a week for dinner. Week after week, the spaghetti is exactly the same. Here are 10 easy tips to spruce up your spaghetti and make it a hit gain during your dinnertime!

1. Pair with a side of bread :-) ~ do not just add a simple piece of frozen Texas toast as your side of bread. Go to your local grocery store bakery and purchase a fresh loaf of focaccia bread. Cut the bread in slices, butter, add slivers of garlic to the top and cover with slices of mozzarella cheese and put under broiler until cheese has melted and bread is lightly toasted.

2. Salsa ~ Make your spaghetti as normal and add 1 cup (per 1LBS of ground beef) of your favorite salsa to your pasta sauce.

3. Pepperoni ~ this is my favorite way to quickly improve my spaghetti. Pepperonis are a little spicy and add a nice kick to your dish. They do not need to be cooked therefore the pepperonis can be added to your meat and sauce mix until they are heated through.

4. Noodle Switch-a-roonie ~ Try changing the noodle to tortellini or ravioli. If you are not super daring or do not want “stuffed” noodles then try a penne or rigatoni noodle. Changing the noodle shape will not change the taste but it can improve the presentation and the texture of your pasta dish.

5. Shredded Cheese Bake ~ Follow your regular spaghetti recipe. Stir the noodles, sauce and meet together and pour into an oven safe dish, cover with 1 cup of your favorite shredded cheese and bake until cheese has melted. (I recommend a pizza or taco blend)

6. Velveeta Bake~ Follow your regular spaghetti recipe. When finished pour into an oven safe dish. In saucepan, mix Velveeta cheese, milk, and butter over medium heat. When everything has melted pour the Velveeta, milk and butter mix over the spaghetti mix. Bake until cheese is slightly brown.

7. Upgrade Sauce ~ if you are currently using a canned spaghetti sauce then this is definitely for you. Do not get me wrong there are some good pasta sauces in a can however; I find that the best tasting sauces are on the top shelves and in the glass jars. If you are really daring try jarred pasta sauce that cost more than $4.00 per 16-ounce jar. If you are not daring enough to spend the extra money then at least try a new flavor like a vodka sauce or a sundried tomato mix.

8. Meatballs ~ Meatballs can be troublesome and time consuming to make so I recommend going to the grocery store and purchasing a bag of frozen mini meatballs. They usually need to be baked in the oven. While they are heating up your noodles can be boiling and sauce can be heat up. The meatballs do have lots of flavor so use seasonings that compliment the flavor of the meatball. You can assemble each dish of spaghetti with noodles, sauce, then top with meatballs.

9. Italian Sausage / Bacon ~ Cook sausage and bacon with your ground beef and continue with your normal process - You may need more sauce to compensate for the additional meat.

10. Vegetables ~ add olives, mushrooms, green peppers, squash, peas, or carrots are some good veggies to start with.

Tonight for dinner, I upgraded my spaghetti by following my regular recipe. I added green peppers, onions to 1 LBS of ground beef added pasta sauce to the cooked meat (replacing my normal Barilla Pasta Sauce (around $2.00) with Mids Italian Sausage pasta sauce (on sale for $4.49), and I used whole-wheat rigatoni noodles. After I mixed the meat, pasta sauce, and noodles I put everything in an oven-safe casserole dish, added a layer of pepperoni, covered that layer with shredded taco blend cheese, and baked for 15 minutes until the cheese was nice and yummy! Therefore, with just a few extra dollars and a 10 more minutes I incorporated tips 3, 5, 7, 10.

How will you spruce up your next spaghetti dinner?