Dinner For Two One

One-pot Homemade Spaghettios with Italian sausage and crushed San Marzano tomatoes: all the fun of the canned stuff and ten times more delicious.

Image of Homemade Spaghettios in pot in front of salad. - 1

Image of Homemade Spaghettios in pot in front of salad. - 2

Hey, I have something pretty fun for you today, One-Pot Homemade Spaghettios!

I know, I’m excited about it too.

This is the ideal dinner idea for those world-weary days when you’d like to feel like a kid again and eat something delicious out of a can with a cartoon character on the side of it, without actually, you know, eating something out of a can with a cartoon character on the side of it.

One-pot Homemade Spaghettios is all the saucy, pasta-y fun of the canned stuff, but classed up a little to better appeal to your grown up sensibilities.

Best of all, it’s cooked all in one pan, so sure, it’s a little more work than opening up a can and heating it in a pot, but it’s still the same number of dishes to wash.

And when I say work, I don’t mean much. This is actually an incredibly simple dinner to make, and most of the cooking time is hands-off simmering time.

Photo of Homemade Spaghettios in a white bowl. - 3

Photo of Homemade Spaghettios in a white bowl. - 4

Our Homemade Spaghettios start with a couple links of mild Italian sausage (if you don’t usually cook with sausage, see the recipe notes below for some extra tips).

You squeeze them out of their casings and shape into cute little meatballs that get browned in butter. After that, you cook some onions and garlic in the drippings, and once those have gotten a little stove time, you’ll add the pasta to the pan.

The type of pasta you use is up to you. If you want super traditional Spaghettios, you’ll want to use anelli or anelletti, but depending on where you live, you might have trouble finding them locally (I did!). Other good options are conchiglie, orecchiette, or macaroni (what I used in the photos).

Following the pasta are the rest of the ingredients, including a little dash of apple cider vinegar, which boosts the flavor and gives everything a fabulous tangy kick.

Simmer together for 25 to 30 minutes, just enough time to do dinner cleanup and chop veggies for a side, and then dig into your super saucy fabulous grown-up pasta with a childlike amount of glee and enthusiasm.

Wide image of Homemade Spaghettios in a pot. - 5

Wide image of Homemade Spaghettios in a pot. - 6

Homemade Spaghettios Recipe Tips

If you don’t usually cook with/buy Italian sausage, you can generally find packages of it near the hamburger in the butcher department. To remove the casings, you can make a shallow slice down the sausage lengthwise and peel it off, or just squeeze the sausage until it bursts out the top or bottom and squeeze the meat into a bowl.
Italian sausage is usually sold by the pound and this recipe calls for 1/2 pound of meat. You can freeze the extra sausages in their casings or form the extra meat into meatballs and freeze to make this dish again later. Just be sure to defrost the meatballs completely before cooking.
Turkey sausage can be substituted, but if there’s not enough fat in the pan after browning your meatballs, you may need to add another tablespoon of butter to the pan before adding your onions.
Perfect sides for this dish include: super simple Broccoli Steamed in the Microwave , crunchy Panko Parmesan Broccoli , and the ever-popular Butter and Garlic Green Beans .
If you have extra tomato paste, see my post What to Do With Leftover Tomato Paste for storage ideas and recipes to use up the leftovers.

As written, this recipe makes two huge or three more modest servings. To change the recipe yield, hover over the number of servings (or click if you are on mobile), and slide the slider. No cooking changes are necessary.

Looking for more Dinner Ideas for Two? Try this Asparagus Chicken Pasta , Salsa Chicken , Baked Ziti , and Slow Cooker Beef Fajitas for Two .

Dinner for Two One Pot Homemade Spaghettios - 7

Ingredients

▢ 1/2 pound mild Italian sausage casings removed
▢ 1 tablespoon butter
▢ 1/4 cup diced onion
▢ 1/4 teaspoon salt
▢ 1/4 teaspoon pepper
▢ 1 clove garlic minced
▢ 1 1/2 teaspoon tomato paste or ketchup
▢ 4 ounces ( 1 cup) anelli, macaroni, conchiglie, or orecchiette
▢ 1 (14-ounce can) crushed tomatoes San Marzano if you can get them
▢ 1 to 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
▢ 1 1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
▢ 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
▢ 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
▢ Shredded Parmesan cheese optional for topping

Instructions

Scoop your sausage into approximately 16 half-ounce balls and roll into tablespoon-size meatballs. In a medium to large skillet, melt butter over medium-high heat.
Add meatballs to the pan and cook a couple minutes per side until completely browned. Transfer meatballs to a plate.
Turn heat down to medium. Add onions, salt, and pepper to the pan and cook until the edges of the onions turn translucent, 4 to 5 minutes.
Add garlic and tomato paste/ketchup and cook for 30 seconds to 1 minute, until garlic is lightly golden.
Pour in pasta, crushed tomatoes, 1 cup of chicken broth, apple cider vinegar, sugar, and oregano, and stir together. Return meatballs to the pan. Bring to a boil and turn stove down so your mixture is just at a simmer. Cook for 25 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, and adding a bit more of the chicken broth if too much of the liquid simmers away.
Dinner is done when the meatballs are cooked through and pasta is al dente.
Serve with Parmesan cheese if desired, and enjoy!

Notes

Recipe From The Kitchn

Welcome to part two of Baking Mischief’s meal planning guide, How to Meal Plan Using Google Calendar. This section takes you through why Google Calendar works great as a meal planner, how to set up your meal plan, and includes some extra tips and tricks to get the most out of your meal planning calendar.

A couple weeks ago, I shared a pretty massive in-depth guide on how to start meal planning . (If you haven’t read that post and you’re interested in creating a meal planning system, go read it! It takes you step-by-step through setting up a system that will work for you.) In that post, I talked about one of the essential components of meal planning, where to keep your meal plan.

A lot of people have success going low-tech, with bullet journals , keeping it in their planner, or just putting a dry erase board on the fridge. For people who prefer digital, something like Trello is an excellent option, but as I said in that first post, my tool of choice is Google Calendar .

I LOVE using Google Calendar for my meal planning, and there wasn’t space in my original post to go into it too much, so today I’m going to take you through using Google Calendar to meal plan, why I use it, how to set up your calendar, and some tips and tricks for getting the most out of your meal planning calendar.

Most of these techniques could probably be applied to any digital calendar you use, so even if you’re not a Google Calendar user and not interested in becoming one, there’s still plenty of useful stuff here. 🙂

A sample month of recipes, click the image for full-size view.

Why I Use Google Calendar for Meal Planning

It’s free. Yay!
It’s available on all of your devices, so wherever you are, whatever device you have with you, you have access to your meal plan.
You can drag and drop meals around your calendar, which makes planning extra easy.
You can share your Meal Plan Calendar with family, roommates, etc., so everyone always knows what’s for dinner.
You have a record of your meals, which you can use to create future meal plans and track eating habits and trends. Plus, it’s just fun to be able to look back and see what you were eating three years ago. (For the record, according to my calendar, I was eating Salsa Chicken and Peasant Soup three years ago.) 😉

Setting up Your Meal Plan Calendar

We live in a Google world, so I’m going to assume you have a Google account and know how to access your Google Calendar (if you don’t, here’s how to do both ). Once you’re in your Google Calendar, you’re going to want to set up a separate calendar just for meal planning.

Screen shot of meal plan calendar creating a new calendar. - 11

Screen shot of meal plan calendar creating a new calendar. - 12

Creating a meal-planning-specific calendar allows you to toggle your meals on and off so they don’t clutter your daily calendar and so that if you share that calendar with others, your housemates aren’t getting your doctors appointments too.

Extra Tip: Google Calendars are arranged alphabetically so using a special character in front of the title or calling your calendar something like “A Menu” will keep that calendar at the top of your list, which is convenient since you will be adding to it so often.

Once your calendar is set up, if you regularly share meals with other people, you can share your calendar with them via the sharing settings. For each person, you can allow them read-only access or allow them to make changes to the calendar. When you invite them to see your calendar, they’ll receive an email notifying them that they’ve been given access to the calendar and it should immediately show up in their “Other calendars” list.

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To access these sharing settings in Google Calendar, go Settings » Settings for my calendars » select your meal plan calendar » Share with specific people .

If at any point you are no longer living together or don’t want them to have the same level of access, you can revoke access or change your sharing settings in that same menu.

Filling Out Your Calendar

And now, all that’s left is the fun part, filling out your meals for the week! I like to do this from the month view. You just click on the day you’re planning for, make sure you have the correct calendar selected, and type in the meal you’ll be having that day.

That’s usually all I do for each entry, but, occasionally, I will click the “More Options” button and add a little more information.

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Screen shot of meal plan calendar entry. - 15

If you’re trying a new recipe and it hasn’t made its way into your recipe book yet, in the description box, you can add the link to the recipe so you don’t have to hunt it down later.

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Screen shot of meal plan calendar entry description. - 17

And for recipes later in the week that are going to use meat or other ingredients you’ve frozen, use the notification function to have Google remind you to take those ingredients out the freezer.

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Screen shot of meal plan calendar entry notifications. - 19

Once you’ve filled those out, your entry will look like this when you click on it.

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Screen shot of meal plan calendar entry. - 21

And that’s it, you now have a week of meals planned out and recorded somewhere you and everyone in your household can always access.

Bonus Meal Planning Calendar Tips

If you share cooking duties, you can color code your entries so you know at a glance who is cooking. (Change entry colors in the “More Options” view next to the calendar selection.)
If you’re the sort of person who uses your calendar as a journal of sorts, you can also add recipe reviews to the description field, so when you look back, you’ll know how you felt about a certain recipe and any changes you might have wanted to try.
Aside from the aforementioned Salsa Chicken and Peasant Soup, some of the recipes that show up most often on my own meal plan include Tri-tip in the Oven , Butter and Garlic Green Beans , Ham and Potato Soup , Chicken Cacciatore , and chicken salads made with this Chicken Breast Recipe .

A round-up of some of my favorite small-batch baking tools for all of your small-batch baking needs.

Hey, friends. As regular readers of the site might remember, I did a reader survey back in December and asked if there were any particular topics you’d like to see covered on Baking Mischief. Most popular request number one was for posts on meal planning (so I wrote How to Meal Plan and How to Meal Plan Using Google Calendar ).

And most popular request number two was for a post on where I buy my small-batch baking tools. This one surprised me! I had no idea this was something so many of you had been wanting to know. But I’m more than happy to answer the question.

Where do I buy small-batch baking equipment?

I went through my baking posts (and some of my favorite personal recipes) and pulled together a list of my most-used tools so you can equip a small-batch kitchen of your own.

If you have any questions leave them below. You know I’m always happy to chat about small-batch baking.

Collage of small-batch baking tools with text: My Favorite Small-batch Baking Tools. - 22

Collage of small-batch baking tools with text: My Favorite Small-batch Baking Tools. - 23

Pyrex Bowl Set // I use at least one of these bowls for every single baking recipe on the site. They are hardy, easy to clean, and between the three, you have the perfect size for almost any small-batch baking need. I’ve used them to melt chocolate for Chocolate Souffles , steam broccoli , and make way too many small-batch cookie batters to count.
Donut Pan // Because donuts . That’s why. 😉
Six-cup Muffin Pan // You do not need a six-cup muffin pan. Small-batch muffins bake up just as well in a standard-size tin, but I LOVE having one. It takes up less counter space, feels like less of a pain to wash, and is just nice to use. When I’m baking a small batch of cupcakes or muffins, this is always the pan I reach for first. Favorites made in this pan include these Banana Muffins , these Vanilla Cupcakes , and these Hostess Cupcakes .
7×5-inch Pyrex Dish // This is one of my very favorite small-batch baking tools because it’s the perfect size for baking small cakes and bars AND comes with a lid so it doubles as storage. Even though I tend to use a stoneware dish for most photo shoots of recipes this size (sorry, I don’t have a link for that container–it’s from a now defunct company out of Portugal), if I’m baking for myself or recipe testing, these are the containers I’m using.
6-inch Cake Pan // I’d consider a 6-inch cake pan essential for anyone who plans to do a lot of small-batch baking. I love making tiny cakes (like this Small Red Velvet Cake or my Small Banana Cake ), so expect to see a couple more this size on the blog soon, and in the meantime, it’s also the perfect size to make a Small Batch of Cinnamon Rolls .
9×5-inch Loaf Pan // A 9×5 loaf is a little large to be considered small-batch, but a 9×5-inch loaf pan can be used for so much more than just bread. Like the 7×5-inch dishes, these are perfect for bars, especially Small-batch Brownies and the occasional batch of ice cream .
Ramekins 6 ounce and 12 ounce // Ramekins are such handy workhorses. They’re great for recipe prep, souffles, and individual servings of things like Scalloped Potatoes , Mac and Cheese , and Chicken Pot Pies . Plus, they’re just so darn cute that you’ll want to have a cupboard full of them.
Handheld Electric Mixer // As much as I love my stand mixer, it’s often just too large to effectively handle a small-batch recipe. Handheld models are 1/10th the price and powerful enough for all your small-batch needs, from whipping egg whites for Angel Food Cupcakes to beating together the perfect Small-batch Chocolate Frosting .
Immersion Blender // The great thing about immersion blenders is that they can do many of the jobs of your heavier, more powerful equipment with less fuss and way less cleanup. For the purposes of small-batch baking, the chopper attachment is absolutely perfect for replacing your food processor when it comes time to puree a bit of fruit or process oatmeal for cookies .

For more of my favorite kitchen tools, try my posts 8 Life-Changing Kitchen Tools and Small Luxuries for the Kitchen .