I have a bit of an obsession with slow cooker recipes. I fully believe in and support the whole idea of "fix it and forget it." So, a few weeks ago, I was playing around on Pinterest and found a Crock Pot Lasagna recipe- and I made it...it was delicious!
That got me to thinking- if I can make lasagna in the crock pot, is it possible to make Crock Pot Spaghetti? So, here we go, another tour of Pinterest. I found lots of different recipes....they all sounded good, but I was kinda stuck- I had some of the ingredients for this one, some of the ingredients for that one...you get the idea- I didn't have all of the ingredients for one particular recipe- so I opted to combine a few of them.
Most of the recipes I came across were to be cooked in the crock pot for 8 hours....that's a LONG time to be smelling spaghetti and not be able to eat it!
I used:
1 box Barilla Angel Hair Pasta
1 jar Ragu Garden Style Sauce
1 can Contadina Tomato Sauce
1 can Campbell's beef broth (all the recipes said chicken broth- but I felt beef would be a good substitute)
1 (8 oz) block of cream cheese
1 pound ground beef
1 (almost) 28 ounce package meatballs (I say "almost" because I ate 6 or 8 of them last week for lunch)
Onion powder, Garlic powder, Italian seasoning, sugar, water
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| Silly me, I forgot to include the ground beef, meatballs, and cream cheese in the picture- oh well, live and learn, right? |
1) I started by browning my meat in a skillet on the stovetop.
2) After browning the meat completely, I drained the grease off and added the tomato sauce and just a little bit of garlic powder, onion powder, and Italian seasoning- I have never measured my seasonings, so I can't tell you how much, just add to your personal preference. (And, as my mom always taught me to do, a pinch of sugar).
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| Here's what it looked like with everything mixed into it. |
3) Then, I moved on to the crock pot. I put the noodles in the bottom of the pot- I broke them in half so that they would fit better. Looking back, I think I'd probably add some moisture to the bottom of the pot first and then put the noodles in, but we'll see how it turns out.
4) On top of the noodles, I poured the Ragu Spaghetti sauce, about 1/3 jar of water (basically enough to rinse the jar out), the meat/sauce mixture, and diced up the cream cheese. The reason for the cream cheese is in one of the recipes, it was said that the cream cheese adds a very nice creamy texture.
5) Next, I put the meatballs on top of everything.
6) I put the lid on and walked away for about an hour or so and let those flavors start mingling. Then, I came back and added in the beef broth and a half can of water.
As I'm writing this, it's still cooking....I've stirred it a few times, but so far I have not tasted it- I'm trying to at least wait until my darling husband comes home from work... I will update after dinner as to whether this was a hit or a fail with my family.
After dinner update: Turns out, this was a pretty good dinner! Hubby even plans on taking some to work with him for lunch tomorrow! The only thing I think I'd do differently next time would be add more liquid- it wasn't quite as saucy as I like for my spaghetti to be.
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| I couldn't wait for hubby to get home....I had to sneak a sample! |
With Love,
Krista
