Skillet Spaghetti Bake
Ground beef, tomato, and angel hair baked under cheese in one cast iron pan.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 11 oz
- cal / oz
- 65
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 25 min
- cook
- 30 min
- total time
- 55 min
- water
- 2000 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Campfire coals
- Dutch oven
- Grill grate
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Olive oil | 2 tbsp | |
|---|---|---|
| Garlic cloves | 4 large | minced, or 1 tsp more garlic powder |
| Yellow onions | 2 large | chopped at home, bagged |
| Salt | 1 1/2 tsp | |
| Ground beef, 80% lean | 2 lb | cooler bottom, frozen solid on day one |
| Crushed tomatoes | 1 can, 28 oz | |
| Tomato sauce | 1 can, 16 oz | |
| Balsamic vinegar | 2 tbsp | dry red wine works |
| Sugar | 2 tbsp | |
| Garlic powder | 1 tbsp | |
| Dried basil | 1 tbsp | |
| Dried tarragon | 1 tbsp | |
| Red pepper flakes | 1 tsp | |
| Angel hair pasta | 16 oz | |
| Mozzarella | 8 oz | low-moisture block, shredded in camp |
Method
- Get a bed of coals going, or set a 12-inch cast iron skillet on a grill grate over medium heat.
- Oil, garlic, onions, and a pinch of the salt into the skillet. Stir now and then until the onions go soft, about 10 minutes.
- Add the beef. Break up the clumps and cook until no pink is left. Pour off the fat into a can, not the fire.
- Add the crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, vinegar, sugar, garlic powder, basil, tarragon, pepper flakes, and the rest of the salt. Simmer 15 minutes at the edge of the coals.
- Meanwhile boil salted water in a second pot and cook the angel hair 2 minutes short of done. Drain it.
- Fold the pasta into the sauce in the skillet. Cover the top with mozzarella.
- Lid it and hold it over low coals for 10 minutes, or set the lid on and shovel a few coals on top until the cheese melts and browns at the edges.
This is a home skillet bake pushed onto a fire ring. The method barely changes, because cast iron does not care where the heat comes from: a bed of coals under the pan and a few on the lid gives you the same top-browning an oven would. The dried herbs and garlic powder are what make it travel. Nothing in the seasoning needs a fridge, and premixing them into one jar means you are adding a single spoonful in the dark instead of opening six containers.
The sugar and vinegar are not decoration. Canned tomatoes run sharp and thin, and those two pull the sauce toward something closer to a long-simmered one in fifteen minutes. Pull the pasta early, since it keeps cooking in the sauce under the lid. Beef and mozzarella both need a cooler, so this is a first- or second-night meal, not a backpacking dinner.
Packing
Chop the onions and mix the sugar, garlic powder, basil, tarragon, pepper flakes, and salt into one jar at home. Beef goes in the cooler frozen; cook it the first night. Cans and pasta ride in the food bin.
Variations
- No second pot: break the pasta in half and simmer it straight in the sauce with an extra cup of water.
- Swap the beef for a pound of dried soy crumbles rehydrated in the sauce and you can leave the cooler home.
- Italian sausage in place of half the beef adds fat and seasoning at once.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/skillet-baked-spaghetti