r/BenignExistence • u/sugabeetus • 4d ago
Neverending leftover spaghetti hack
My family loves spaghetti, but over the years our tastes have changed. I don't love meat, but I don't want no meat. My kid likes extra meat. My husband wants no noodles but mixes some sauce into his people chow. Nobody eats the leftovers because the sauce soaks in too much and it gets dry and mushy. So last time, instead of making meat sauce, I got air-fryer meatballs. Delicious. When I put away the leftovers, I kept all the parts separate. This worked great, but we ran out of meatballs first so I bought more. Then we ran out of noodles so I made another batch. Then we ran out of sauce. You see where this is going. Now we have a gallon bag of cooked spaghetti, an opened jar of sauce, and a container of cooked meatballs being replenished in the fridge at all times for a good month now. We just heat up our preferred combo at any time and it tastes almost as good as fresh. I'm gonna see how long I can keep this going before we all get sick of it.
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u/Cant-take2-muchmore 4d ago
If wanting to save spaghetti but hate it leftover, because as you described the noodles get soggy, I put it in muffin tins and freeze then put the ‘spaghetti muffins’ in a freezer bag for storage. When you want one, or two, three, take them out, place face down on pan and maybe cover with cheese then reheat in air fryer till bubbly. You’ll end up with little servings of something that tastes like the crispy corner of a lasagne vs leftover spaghetti.
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u/Zanthalia 4d ago
What kind of genius-level leftovering is this!? That's brilliant! I'm stealing it, and thank you! 😁
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u/CellistMindless987 1d ago
Frozen "muffins" of everything is the only way to go. Oatmeal, chili, soup, beans, you name it. Pretty much anything scoopable works as long as there's not much dairy.
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u/Zanthalia 1d ago
Please forgive, but why as long as there isn't much dairy? Does it not freeze and reheat properly?
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u/Inevitable_Wait_7652 4d ago
Another option that I grew up with - leftover spaghetti in the sauce, basically pan fried in butter - firms up the noodles and adds a bit of extra flavor and creaminess to the sauce.
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u/QuiteALongWayAway 4d ago
You discovered the XKCD Delicious Cycle!
Relevant xkcd:
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u/taurfea 4d ago
I’m not familiar with leftover cheese
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u/Technical_Trifle4866 3d ago
Especially when you've paid any outstanding cheese tax.
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u/Alien-lifeform666 3d ago
How can I become a cheese tax collector? I feel that would be a perfect match for my talents. Which consist mainly of eating more cheese than is probably good for me…
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u/Technical_Trifle4866 3d ago
The only cheese tax collectors I've known have been canine, so im not sure how to advise you.
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u/Alien-lifeform666 3d ago
Woof woof!
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u/donh- 4d ago
Brilliant!
My friend Dave wants to know if you have found the church of the flying spaghetti monster?
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u/mzmm123 4d ago edited 4d ago
First off, let's hear about this people chow lol
Secondly, I don't have an air fryer, but I do something like this with frozen meatballs. I live with my oldest autistic son, who doesn't like tomato based spaghetti sauce, but prefers pesto, which I don't mind, but every now and then I find myself craving the tomato-based sauce.
Sometimes I will toss the pesto spaghetti and meatballs into a salad to beef it up, so at this point, I make a full box of [whole wheat] spaghetti at the beginning of the week [son doesn't like rice, so this is our regular staple] make pesto sauce as needed to store in the fridge and have serving size freezer bags of 'regular' spaghetti sauce in the freezer. Occasionally, we stir-fry sliced yellow squash, onions and mushrooms or chicken italian sausage with parmesan cheese to add in to switch things up 😋
ETA: I forgot to mention that I bought a veggie spiralizer this year, so sometimes the yellow squash gets turned into zoodles to toss with the spaghetti. We had that tonight with the spaghetti tossed with the pesto sauce, thin sliced cabbage, onions and mushrooms [with baked porkchops]
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u/checker280 4d ago
There’s a cooking school in Brooklyn called The Purple Kale that espouses this philosophy. Apparently both parents were executive chefs when they had kids. They would come home from work and spend too much time making baby food and toddler food - and forget about themselves.
Eventually they decided a plan to make parts of the meal in batches so they can quickly whip together single serve portions as easy as a little of this and some of that. Dishes would come together as soon as they could warm things up.
Garlic would be poached whole heads covered in boiling water long enough to kill some of the sharp bite. Onions would be sauced into a jam. Beans cooked and stored in their poaching liquid which can be combined into a sauce. Rice cooked in the oven (mostly attention free) then cooled and tossed with salt and oil. Add a roast chicken.
These ingredients can be combined into soups, salads, stir fries, bruschettas with next to no clean up since that was done earlier on another day. No waiting to develop flavors because that was done in another day as well.
It’s a great system but requires diligence to replace the parts as they begin to run out.
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u/AppropriateAmoeba406 4d ago
I do this for our teen boys. No one else at our house wants spaghetti that often. 🤢
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u/64green 4d ago
I never store leftover sauce mixed with pasta, it’s always separate.
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u/sugabeetus 4d ago
We used to finish it off the next day so it stayed ok. But it's taking longer and separate was always best.
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u/LowLibrary399 3d ago
I’ve always kept them separate. Anyone who mixes it all together is a red flag. Normally puts sugar in it too. RUN
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u/theacearrow 4d ago
My family has very different opinions about pasta sauce so we just kept the sauces separate and the noodles plain. No issues with soggy there.
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u/cascasrevolution 3d ago
i always hate when my dad puts the meatballs away in the sauce. its like a fucking paleontological excavation trying to get one out
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u/Ok-Breadfruit-1359 2d ago
Yesterday we had meatloaf muffins with polenta and veggies. The last time I made polenta, I froze half of it. We ate the frozen half yesterday. Immediately after dinner, I froze the left over meatloaf. I told my family that I hoped it would become a perpetual meal because we can freeze whatever we serve the meatloaf with.
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u/soft_tooth 1d ago
Why not just make exactly the portion of pasta you need for a meal and just make more as needed to go with the leftovers the next night?
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u/user_without_a_soul 4d ago
hang on I need to know about the husband's "people chow"