Cookbook Chronicles: Million Dollar Spaghetti

Cookbook Chronicles is an on-going series at The Bookery. Over the course of the next year, we’re exploring The Pioneer Woman’s (Ree Drummond) latest cookbook, The Essential Recipes, cooking one recipe a month and sharing our thoughts. 

I'm a sucker for pasta recipes, so when I saw the Million Dollar Spaghetti recipe in Ree's latest cookbook, I knew it was one I had to try. I've heard of Million Dollar Spaghetti, but most of the recipe's by that name involve a thick layer of cheese, ranging from cream cheese and Parmesan to cottage cheese — but that's not this recipe.

Instead, the Pioneer Woman's Million Dollar spaghetti involves three types of sauces: marinara (with or without meat, Alfredo and pesto. While I might have combined one or two of those sauces in the past, it never occurred to me to combine all three.

The recipe: Million Dollar Spaghetti, p. 146

The cookbook: The Essential Recipes by Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman

The details: This isn't a hard recipe, or one that's going to take hours to put together. To be honest, one of the things I liked about it was that you could make it as high maintenance or quick-and-easy as you liked. Ree directs you to additional recipes in the book if you want to try her recipes for marinara, Alfredo or pesto. Or, you can take it easy, like me, and use jarred sauces. As written, the recipe doesn't include meat, but you can definitely add ground beef or turkey to the marinara if you prefer (I did)!

The adjustments: When I read through the recipe to make sure I had all the ingredients on my grocery list, I overlooked exactly how much marinara sauce you needed. The recipe calls for four cups, and I knew my jar of Rao's marinara wouldn't be enough. Thankfully, I had a large can of whole tomatoes that I slow simmered with my jarred marinara and ground beef. I also simmered my ground beef in a little bit of milk, as you would with bolognese sauce, before adding the tomatoes and sauce. Don't knock it until you try it! In my quest to eat enough protein, I also used Barilla Protein+ spaghetti.

The verdict: As I told some coworkers today when I was eating my leftover for lunch at work, this recipe, at least for me, was just OK. Maybe it was the particular jarred sauces I selected, but it didn't have the burst of flavor I was hoping for, especially after simmering the marinara sauce for about an hour. It's not a bad recipe, and I didn't hate it — but I also didn't love it. But, I may play with the recipe a bit, maybe adding Italian sausage or testing out some of Ree's homemade sauce recipes sometime.

Up Next: I'm a Fun-Gi Mushroom Pizza, p. 111

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