Next Post
Herbed Goat Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms.
This post may contain affiliate links, please see our privacy policy for details.
And just like that, it’s the day after Christmas!
I can’t believe it has come and gone, but I’m excited to have a laid back week ahead of us! I hope you guys all had an amazing Christmas. I want to hear all about it, and tell you all about what the Gerard family has been up to the last few days, but first, I need to tell you all about this incredible pasta dish. So much to share!!
This Million Dollar Spaghetti, is one of my favorite meals to make when feeding a lot of people. Especially when a lot of those people are hungry brothers and friends. For everyone who loves, cheesy, meaty, pasta, this is your dish. It’s SO easy to prepare, full of spaghetti, spicy Italian sausage and cheese. Better known as a major winner food combo!
I actually served this dish up last week, but I am posting it today in hopes that it will be a great easy dinner for you guys to make for your family and friends this week.
We had a great week, but sadly some of my family members are headed out today (Abby is headed all the way to India!). But with some leaving, more will be coming, so large amounts of food will still be in high demand. To quickly recap the last few days around here, we started the Christmas fun a little early on Thursday and did a family snowmobile trip up on Vail Pass over to the little town of Red Cliff. It was pretty spur of the moment, but I am so glad that we ALL got to go. Every single immediate Gerard family member was in tow (meaning all nine of us including mom and dad) plus my two cousins, Maggie and Abby, Brendan and Malachi’s girlfriends, Lyndsie and Caitlin, and Kai’s friend Kyle who, one made the trip happen thanks to his four snowmobiles, and two, is basically just another family member at this point. So a grand total of fourteen people…on five snowmobiles. Don’t even ask how we made that happen (think snowboarders literally in tow), but we did… and it was awesome!
We finished the night off with family bowling. Yeah, family bowling, because that’s what you do at night in a ski town…
Friday was pretty mellow, Christmas Eve had a few last minute shopping trips in the morning with gingerbread house making in the afternoon. Christmas Day was spent opening gifts, lounging around, a family hike, making a few Bloody Marys and of course, cooking! Nothing fancy, but pretty perfect in my mind. So how was everyone else’s Christmas?
Now that my cousins have left, the next group is headed our way, which should be interesting, as some of them have never seen snow before. Bren’s girlfriend Lyndsie has her entire family coming in tomorrow and staying through New Years until the third, so my parents are going to have a very full house.
I have no idea what I am cooking up this week, still trying to recover from the weekend of mad cooking and cocktail making, but I’m sure there will be lots. Since Lyn’s family has yet to try this million dollar spaghetti casserole, odds are that I will be making it sometime this week.
I like to think of this dish as a very easy, deconstructed lasagna. It has all the same flavors of a classic lasagna, but minus all the cooking steps, layers, and time, YES! I guess that’s why we call it million dollar spaghetti, huh? Tastes like a million bucks, but it really is easy, and also pretty cheap to make…but don’t tell your guest that, DUH. 🙂
The one major way this dish varies from lasagna however, is that the spaghetti noodles on the bottom of this dish is treated like spaghetti carbonara. Before you bake it, you toss it with eggs to create a rich and creamy sauce. It’s fantastic and sets the dish apart from just another spaghetti recipe.
Trust me, this is not your grandma’s spaghetti bake!
Million Dollar Spaghetti.
Servings: 8 servings
Calories Per Serving: 638 kcal
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Ingredients
- 1 pound spaghetti
- 4 eggs
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 4 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup whole milk cottage cheese
- 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
- 1 pound ground spicy Italian sausage
- 3 cups marinara sauce, homemade or store-bought
- 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat and boil the pasta until al dente according to package directions.
- Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, parsley and Parmesan. Drain the spaghetti, and add it right back to the hot pot. Add the butter and the egg mixture to the spaghetti, and quickly toss until evenly coated and the eggs have formed a sauce. Add the cottage cheese and cream cheese and toss until combined. Transfer the mixture to the baking dish.
- Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add the sausage and brown all over, about 5 to 8 minutes. Remove from the heat, and stir in the marinara sauce. Spread mixture over the spaghetti. Add the mozzarella cheese in an even layer over top.
- Transfer the baking dish to the oven and bake 30 to 45 minutes or until the cheese has melted and is lightly browned on top. Cool 5 minutes before serving. Serve with parmesan and basil, if desired.
Everyone’s gonna eat it all up.
This post was originally published on December 26, 2016
Was craving some cheesy, warm pasta today, came onto your blog and it’s the first recipe I see ! Kismet ?? Making this today! We’re just going to chill and decompress after a busy holiday, and this is absolutely perfect.
Awesome!! SO glad the recipe was perfect for you today!! Hope you love it and hope you and your family had a Merry Christmas!
This sounds amazing, Tieghan! I’m so glad you had a great Christmas with your family and I love hearing about it! Thanks for this recipe and it’s definitely something I want to try!
Thanks Tori, it was a blast! Hope you love the spaghetti of course! Happy holidays!!
You know, I have had so many spaghetti during my younger days at home. It was a weekly recurrence. Now I’m so fed up on it that every time I see a spa recipe I just scroll down. But something in yours made me stop, and actually open this recipe. It looks good, it looks different. It looks like something that could make me love again spaghetti.
I’ll try it for sure ! I actually, I can’t wait to have spaghetti again now…. ! wow
Wow, so awesome that you stopped for my spaghetti! I seriously hope you love it, thanks a ton Erika!
What size jar of sauce did you use?
So sorry, a 28 ounce size jar, about 3 cups. Hope you love this and hope you and your family had a Merry Christmas!
AWESOME melted cheeseeeeee OMG love it so muchhh <3<3 thanks for sharing, foodie :DD
regards,
http://www.CHIPPEIDO.co.vu
So happy you like it!! Thanks so much!
I love your recipes and beautiful photos! Christmas in South Texas was a balmy, humid 80°! Yuck! Being Latina, we celebrate with tamales, Spanish rice and charro beans. Lots of netflix, lounging and a late night burger run made for a great day ?. I’ll be making this recipe to share with family for sure!!! Happy New Year!
Oh man! Thats so warm! Glad your still enjoying the holidays though! Thanks so much and happy new year!
What a lovely Christmas you had! One of our favorite family things to do is have a game night. Lots of silly fun playing board games. This Million Dollar Spaghetti would be great for such an occasion.
By the way did you break up the spaghetti stands before boiling them?
Hey Carmen! I love playing games with my family, it’s so much fun! I did not break the spaghetti, but it broke up as I tossed it. Let me know if you have questions. Thank you and I hope you and your family had a Merry Christmas!
Sounds perfect after Christmas, simple yet can feed so many! Elinor x
So happy you like it Elinor! Thank you!
This looks fabulous and I am going to give it a go for New Year’s. I don’t usually like to comment on a recipe until I have actually made it, but wanted to comment on your story above. My daughter’s name is Lyndsie also. I don’t usually see it spelled that way. When I named her, i made up the spelling because my middle name, Lyn. I am finding a few more Lyndsie’s out there now. Happy New Year! Can’t wait to try your recipe!
Oh wow! Thats so cool! Its an awesome way to spell it! Hope you enjoy the Spaghetti! Happy new year!
I swear, you must be the best cook in the world! I love looking at all the gorgeous pictures of your recipe dishes; and all of the ones I’ve made have been astoundingly good! Please, don’t ever go away!
By the way, I’ve been looking for a good baked spaghetti recipe, and this looks superb! I do believe this will be my next endeavor. Thanks!
Your too nice Joan! Thank you so much!
So happy you like everything!! (:
Wondering if I can assemble this the day before and bake the next day! Is the 8 hearty serving? Trying to decide how many to make for around 20 folks
Yes, that will work great!! I’d say this serves 6 hearty portions. Please let me know if you have other questions. Hope you love this recipe! Thanks! 🙂
This is really a winner recipe for a hungry crowd of people. ANYTHING with cheese is always good. I would love to see pictures of your backyard with the snow:).
SO happy everyone liked it Carlos! Maybe I will get one on the blog here soon. Thanks!
I would gladly substitute the pasta for my breakfast right now. It looks simply delicious!! Sounds like you had a wonderful Christmas. We hate to see it end.
Awh thank Marisa! is was great! Hope you had an amazing Christmas as well (:
Enough with the torture already!! I’m drooling!! And hungry!!
https://bloglairdutemps.blogspot.pt
Haha! Thanks Ruth! I hope you get to make this!!
Wow this looks and sounds delicious! So creative and such a good idea!
Thanks so much, Rhian! Hope you and your family had a Merry Christmas!
sounds family-filled but fun and hopefully a good break from all your cookbook and etc craziness! and spaghetti with four cheeses? sounds perfect for post-christmas happiness.
Yes it was! I totally thought so as well, thanks Heather!