There are some weeknight recipes that we fall back to time and again. We can’t imagine life without spaghetti, for instance, but sometimes simple marinara gets a little boring (though you can’t beat the ease of jarred pasta sauce). Luckily, we can rely on our culinary heroes for solutions. Martha Stewart’s cheesy weeknight pasta has just what we’re looking for. It’s slightly more hands-on than dumping a jar of tomato sauce into a sauce pan, but you’d be surprised at how simple it is to make a cheese sauce from scratch for your pasta – no gloppy sauce packets or strange cheese powders needed. But there’s one thing that really sets this cheesy weeknight spaghetti over the edge – crispy bacon.
View this post on Instagram
First things first – you don’t have to be afraid of making the cheese sauce. A simple roux of butter, flour, and milk comes together in minutes, and makes a smooth sauce. Whisk in your favorite melting cheeses (Stewart recommends Gruyere, Monterey Jack, and fontina), and you’ve got cheese sauce.
Onion, garlic, and fresh thyme add a backbone of complex flavor to the sauce, but the ingredient that really makes this recipe shine is bacon. The bacon adds a savory, smoky note to each bite, its saltiness livening up the rich cheese sauce.
Garnish your plate with some freshly cracked black pepper, fresh thyme leaves, and an extra sprinkle of Parmesan cheese, and you have a restaurant quality pasta meal from Martha Stewart – but it comes together in just 40 minutes.
Each fork twirl of spaghetti is coated in a smooth, cheesy sauce, fragrant with thyme and dotted with salty, crispy pieces of bacon. It’s like a sophisticated mac and cheese that adults and kids will both appreciate, all made from scratch. Any excuse to add more bacon to our lives!
Before you go, check out Garten’s best dinner recipes below:
Leave a Comment