Skillet Spaghetti for a Crowd
Ground beef, jarred sauce, and broken noodles. Feeds eight out of two pots at a picnic table.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 69
- protein
- 30 g
- serves
- 8, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 25 min
- total time
- 35 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
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Grill grate
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Ground beef | 1 lb | kept cold in the cooler, cooked the first night |
|---|---|---|
| Spaghetti | 1 lb | snap the bundle in half before it goes in the box |
| Jarred pasta sauce | 2 cans or jars | cans over glass |
| Onion | 1 small | diced at home |
| Garlic powder | 1 tsp | |
| Salt | 1 tsp | half for the pasta water |
Method
- Get 2 quarts of water going in the big pot. Salt it.
- While it heats, brown the beef with the onion and garlic powder in the skillet. Break it up as it goes.
- Pour off the fat once the beef has no pink left. Add both cans of sauce and drop the flame to a simmer.
- When the water boils, add the broken spaghetti. Stir the first minute so it does not weld to the bottom. Nine to eleven minutes.
- Drain the pasta. Combine it with the sauce in whichever pot is bigger, or serve the sauce over the top.
This is a scout-troop dinner, and it earns that job by being hard to ruin. Two burners, two pots, and one ingredient you actually have to time. The sauce comes out of a can already finished, so the only real cooking is browning the meat and not walking away from the noodles.
Draining the fat matters more than it seems. A pound of ground beef sheds a few tablespoons of grease, and jarred sauce has nothing in it to absorb that, so it pools on top and coats the noodles. The beef is the only cooler-dependent part here. Cook it the first night out, or use the lentil swap below and carry the whole meal on a shelf.
Packing
Dice the onion at home and bag it with the garlic powder and salt. Beef rides at the bottom of the cooler on ice and gets cooked the first night out. Snapping the spaghetti in half at home saves a pot that is too shallow for full-length noodles.
Variations
- Swap the beef for two pouches of shelf-stable cooked lentils or a bag of TVP rehydrated in the sauce, and this needs no cooler at all.
- A hard grating cheese travels a few days without ice and covers the salt gap.
- Cook the pasta straight in the sauce with about a quart of water if you only have one pot. Stir often and add water as it thickens.
https://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/recipe/super_easy_spaghetti-226.asp