Ground beef is simmered away with your favorite store bought marinara sauce along with some additional seasonings and then add in pasta that has been cooked just until al dente along with some mozzarella and cream cheese and let it cook just a little bit more for an amazing Crock-Pot Baked Spaghetti recipe everyone in the family will adore!
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Crock-Pot Baked Spaghetti
Spaghetti is a favorite in my house. Well, a favorite of mine! I have odd ball kids that spaghetti is not their favorite, chicken nuggets are their favorite. What is a mom to do?
My good friend asked a good question the other day “can I cook spaghetti in the crock-pot?“. And my answer was “hmmmm. I don’t know“.
So I decided to try and figure out a way to cook the noodles without making them mushy. I wanted to try and see if I could cook the noodles in the sauce and how long that would take.
My first attempt was seeing if I could cook the noodles in the sauce in the crock-pot. I put a jar of sauce in the crock-pot and then put in my spaghetti noodles, set the crock-pot to low and let it cook. And cook. And cook. After 8 hours, I tried the noodles and some where cooked (the ones that were in the sauce) and some were not. Some seemed too cooked and well this was a bust. I had to toss it.
Trial and error folks…trial and error!
Rethinking this process, I decided to cook my sauce in the crock-pot and then add in some noodles that were cooked, but not all the way (al dente).
In contemporary Italian cooking, the term identifies the ideal consistency for pasta and involves a brief cooking time. Molto al dente is the culinary term for slightly undercooked pasta. Undercooking pasta is used in the first round of cooking when a pasta dish is going to be cooked twice. The culinary term “al forno” is used for pasta dishes that are cooked twice.
Pasta that is cooked al dente has a lower glycemic index than pasta that is cooked soft. When cooking commercial pasta, the al dente phase occurs right after the white of the pasta center disappears. Wikipedia
I added my sauce in the crock-pot (along with some ground beef and spices), let it get hot and then added in my noodles. If you want to add in some chopped veggies, now would be the time to do this. Chopped green peppers, onions or mushrooms would be great in this dish. On top of the noodles (friend suggested this, different then the first friend), I added in small chunks of cream cheese. and let that cook. I gave it a quick stir and added in some mozzarella cheese (melted cheese is always good on spaghetti).
A couple hours total and after cooking some garlic cheese bread, I had dinner.
And it was delicious…seriously!
One final note: you can keep the baked spaghetti in the crock-pot after it is done cooking, turn the temperature down to WARM. The noodles will keep cooking. And if you leave it in there for over an hour on WARM, your noodles will start to get mushy. I would suggest taking the baked spaghetti out of the crock-pot and serving from a serving dish.
No one likes mushy noodles!
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| Servings | 8People |
| Prep Time | 30Minutes |
| Cook Time | 2.5Hours On LOW |
- 32 ounces spaghetti sauce your favorite brand of store bought or homemade
- 1 pound ground beef cooked and drained
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
- 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
- 16 ounces spaghetti noodles cooked on the stove-top until al dente
- 4 ounces cream cheese cut into cubes
- 2 cups mozzarella cheese shredded
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Ingredients
Servings: People
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- Add spaghetti sauce, spices and cooked hamburger to a 5 quart crock-pot and stir to combine.
- Cover and cook on LOW for 2 hours.
- Add in al dente cooked spaghetti noodles and stir well to coat all the noodles evenly with the sauce.
- Place cream cheese cubes on top of the spaghetti noodles and sauce and cover and cook an additional 30 minutes on LOW.
- Stir well to evenly distribute the melted cream cheese throughout the pasta.
- Add the mozzarella cheese on top of the pasta and cover and cook another 30 minutes or until the cheese is melted.
- Serve and enjoy! Garnish with grated Parmesan cheese and some fresh chopped parsley if desired.
Recipe Collections:
| Crock-Pot Hamburger Recipes | Slow Cooker Beef Recipes |
| Cheesy Slow Cooker Recipes | 5-Quart Crock-Pot Recipes |
| Italian Crock-Pot Recipes | Slow Cooker Entree Recipes |
Crock-Pot Used In This Crock-Pot Baked Spaghetti Recipe:
Hamilton Beach 33155 040094331550 5 Quart Portable Oval Slow Cooker, Red (Kitchen)
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This recipe is confusing; in header it says cook 4 hours, then in the recipe, it says 2 with an additional 30 minutes..which is it?!
Thank you Judy for pointing out that mistake. I have fixed the recipe. The cooking time is 2.5 hours on LOW total cooking time.