Easiest Spaghetti recipe EVER

Last Updated on February 18, 2023

This post was originally published on my Crud Dad blog on 2nd July 2016

Hello again!  In this blog post I wanted to share one of my favourite recipes with you, and it might just be one of the easiest spaghetti recipes you’ll ever cooked.

Usually when I see a recipe claim to be fast and easy it’s usually neither.  Several of my friends have commented that Jamie Oliver’s 15 minute meals have the potential to take considerably longer than 15 minutes to prepare.  So I wanted to share an idea for a meal that really is simple and fast to throw together.  Sure it takes a while in the oven but the time needed to actually chuck the ingredients together is minimal.

You’ll notice when you read the ingredients list that this spaghetti is not what you may have come to know as spaghetti.  This is a rough and ready rustic Neapolitan traditional spaghetti.  If you landed on this page hoping for a big rich tomato sauce then I recommend you try this Neapolitan variation anyway.  My whole family loves this recipe because it’s big on flavour and has the added bonus of being nicely healthy.

As a caveat I need to let you know I didn’t invent this recipe, I found it in one of my favourite recipe books, the fantastic ‘From Seed to Plate’ by Paolo Arrigo.

Easiest Spaghetti ingredients

You’ll notice that all of these ingredients are a little vague.  I’ve cooked this meal countless times and have used different quantities each time, and the end result is always much the same.  My family is just me, my wife and the wee one so if your tribe is a little larger just bung in some more tomatoes and cook up some extra spaghetti / pasta.

• A couple of handfuls of tomatoes
• Some cloves of garlic
• A generous splash of extra virgin olive oil
• Dried oregano
• Salt and pepper

Easiest Spaghetti method

1. Switch on your oven and set it to 170oC / 340oF.
2. Cut the tomatoes in half and lay them in a baking dish with the juicy bit pointing upwards
3. Sprinkle the diced, grated (or whatever) garlic over the tomatoes
4. Sprinkle your salt, pepper and oregano over the tomatoes
5. Drizzle some extra virgin olive oil over the tomatoes
6. Sling the lot in the oven and check on it every ten(ish) minutes.  When the tomatoes have gone mushy take the dish out of the oven.  Don’t let ’em burn!  This can take up to about an hour depending on how brutal your oven is
7. Boil your spaghetti or pasta in a saucepan like you always do
8. When the spaghetti or pasta is cooked drain it, but make sure you leave just a tiny bit of water in the saucepan.  At a guess I’d say about a tablespoon worth
9. Tip all the mushy roasted tomatoes into the spaghetti saucepan and mix it all together
10. Slop it into pasta bowls (or plates, we’re not fancy here)
11. Eat!

If you want to make a tiny amount more effort then you can sprinkle some freshly grated parmesan before serving.  Ripped up leaves of fresh basil are also pretty swish.

So there you go, get cooking and let me know how you get on in the comments section.

If you fancy trying some of the other recipes in ‘From Seed to Plate’ click here:

Rustic Spaghetti – Tasty, cheap and fast!