One of the very few cooking tips I learned from my mother: Spaghetti sauce is highly enhanced by cottage cheese.
Now, I hate cottage cheese. But in spaghetti sauce? Mmmmm mmmm good.
Unfortunately, my wife disagrees. Violently. Won’t even think about giving it a try. So I haven’t had my cottage cheese-enhanced spaghetti sauce in years. 
Can anyone else back me up that this is a tasty thing?
Sautee a few chopped cloves of garlic in olive oil. Add chopped onions, celery, and maybe mushrooms.
Add a little red wine and cook down.
Add 2 cans of tomato sauce, and one can of tomato paste.
Season liberally with oregano, basil, marjoram, and garlic powder.
Season lightly with sage, thyme, rosemary, and white pepper.
Pour over noodles like fucilli or penne- they hold onto the sauce better than spaghetti noodles do.
My mom used to supplement (or substitute) cottage cheese for ricotta cheese when making lasagne, so I don’t see why not. Try running the ricotta cheese past her first and see if she buys it, then switch them on her.
–SSgtBaloo
I had an Italian grandma but never got her sauce recipe. So, I usually buy the Classico jarred sauce which comes pretty close. It doesn’t have that slight bitter edge that many tomato sauces have.
Anyway, I occasionally add something that mean seem unusual. I picked this habit up from an ex-boyfriend, which supposedly is from a certain part of Italy. I add a hard-boiled egg or two per serving. You peel the egg of course and warm it up whole (either unpeeled when boiling the noodles or peeled in the sauce). Then you dish up your servings with one or two eggs each and then you cut up the egg into the sauce. I was skeptical when he first suggested it but now I actually like it. Mixed with the tomato sauce it doesn’t really taste eggy, it tastes kind of meaty.
Brown 1 pound spicy italian sausage links, cut into 1/2" slices. Add 1 jar Emeril’s sauce (I like Kicked Up Tomato or Vodka Sauce). Add 2 zuccini, cut into 1/2" wedges. Bring to a boil, simmer until zuccini are done. Serve with cooked noodles. Eat. Be at peace. Eat more.
Whenever my stepson insists on pizza, I always get it from the place that has pasta too.
Pizza is kiddy food.
Am I the only one who uses roasted red peppers in the spaghetti sauce?
MMMmmmmmmm MMmmmmmm Good!
My hands.
You guys are both weird. Spaghetti and pizza are both great when made well. If you think they’re gross, you’ve hade too much Domino’s and Spaghetti-O’s.
Hey! Don’t be dissin’ Spaghetti-Os!
Try using ricotta instead. Many people who won’t give cottage cheese a second glance will gladly eat Italian food with ricotta in it, even though they’re really really similar.
Brilliantly simple recipe:
One juicy red pepper. One decent-sized red chilli. Chop both very finely. Fry in top-quality olive oil for about ten minutes - until the colour from the peppers has passed into the oil. Strain the oil, squeezing all the juice out of the remains of the peppers, and pour over the spaghetti. Top with parmesan (real parmesan).
A couple of people have mentioned dressing their pasta with just garlic in olive oil. That’s great, but to make it even better, cut up some olives* and throw them in the pan with the oil and garlic until everything is just heated through. Add some herbs too, at the last minute. Toss with pasta.
That’s the old original ‘Spaghetti a la Puttanesca’ that was supposedly fed by prostitutes to their customers, to ‘give them strength’. Who am I to argue with tradition?
Timing is important for this. The dish depends on the components being hot enough to cook the sauce, so try to get everything so they are done at the same time.
You will need a frypan, a metal bowl, a saucepan big enough to hold the bowl as a double boiler, and your regular spaghetti-boiling vessel.
1-Chop up some bacon and onions. About handful of each per serving. Fry on low-med until bacon is lightly crispy. Keep warm in the pan-don’t drain the fat! That’s an important sauce component.
2- Put spaghetti on to boil. @ 75g per person. Spaghetti is usually 10 minutes to cook.
3-Fill a saucepan about half full and put on to boil; once boiled, lower to simmer. In a metal bowl mix (per person) 1 egg and 1/4 cup grated parmesan(the REAL stuff you grate yourself dammit!). Whisk violently together. About 3 minutes before the noodles are done, place bowl on the double boiler pot you have on the simmer and let the eggs and cheese cook a BIT- don’t let it scramble. When the eggs are just showing some indication of setting, remove bowl from pan.
(purists will scoff at the egg pre-cooking, I know. Screw’em, I don’t like drippy eggs)
4-Drain pasta, and add to frypan with the bacon. Combine with bacon. Remove pan from heat. Pour eggs onto noodles in pan and combine. Serve immediately.
Join me in the cardiac ward.
