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Cafeteria Spaghetti with Meat Sauce
Rachel Kim

Cafeteria Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

School spaghetti leaned sweet, tomato-forward and finely textured, with broken noodles that a student could manage using a fork. A five-quart home Dutch oven makes eight portions instead of a steam-table pan. Browning the beef into tiny crumbles and simmering the sauce before adding pasta recreates the cohesive, scoopable tray-line texture.
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Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Total Time 50 minutes
Servings: 8
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

  • 1 lb ground beef
  • 1 small yellow onion finely diced
  • 2 cloves garlic minced
  • 1 can 28 oz crushed tomatoes
  • 1 can 15 oz tomato sauce
  • 2 tbsp tomato paste
  • 1 tbsp brown sugar
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper
  • 12 oz spaghetti broken in half
  • 1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Method
 

  1. Brown beef and onion in a Dutch oven, breaking the meat into very fine crumbles; drain excess fat.
  2. Add garlic and tomato paste and cook for 1 minute.
  3. Stir in crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, brown sugar, oregano, salt and pepper and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes.
  4. Boil broken spaghetti in salted water until tender and drain, reserving 1 cup pasta water.
  5. Fold spaghetti and Parmesan into the sauce, adding enough pasta water to keep it loose and scoopable.
  6. Simmer together for 2 minutes and serve in shallow bowls.