One-Pan Dirty Spaghetti

Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with Dirty Spaghetti. That's right, spaghetti's been too clean for too long, so I'm going to show you my favorite method for making it dirty, and I mean very dirty. Speaking of which, we're going to do everything in one pan, which not only means no extra dirty dishes, but it also means our pasta is going to absorb more flavor than if we boiled it separately. And to get started, we'll take some ground beef and we'll transfer it into a skillet set over medium-high heat, in which we drizzled some olive oil, and we will cook that for a few minutes while crumbling it up with a spatula, since we want to give this a little bit of a head start browning before we add what's called the Holy Trinity, which is a combination of diced onion, some kind of pepper, which in my case are going to be some red and orange bell peppers, as well as some diced celery, and then to turn our Holy Trinity into the Four Horsemen of the Flavor Apocalypse, we will also add some cut up andouille sausage, and we will cook this during for about a minute or so before we add our Cajun seasoning. And personally, I love the combination of the ground beef with that spicy, smoky, super savory cured sausage, but this technique will work with any kind of ground meat or sausage, so if you want to use something else, go ahead. I mean, you are after all the swamp thing of making sure these flavors sing, and speaking of swampy flavors, once we have cooked that for a minute or two, we will toss in some onion powder, some garlic powder, as well as a nice spoon of paprika, either regular or smoked. We'll also do some ground cumin, followed by some dried herbs, and I went with thyme and oregano, then we'll finish up with some freshly ground black pepper, some cayenne, of course, as well as some kosher salt, and we'll stir all that together and cook this for another two minutes or so, which is really all we're going to need at this point, since all these veggies are going to continue to soften while we cook our pasta, and I do think we want those to retain a little bit of texture when we serve this. Oh, and I should mention, most recipes are going to have you add a couple tablespoons of flour at this point, which will of course help thicken up the sauce, but since we're using a one pan method, and we're cooking our spaghetti in the broth, we're going to have plenty of starch already in here to make that happen, but anyway, once that's cooked for a few minutes, we will transfer in our beef broth, which could also be chicken broth, or I guess vegetable broth, but who are we kidding, and no matter what you use, what we'll do is stir that in, and we wait for that to come up to a simmer, at which point we can add our raw spaghetti, which I'm going to break in half, since I think that makes it a lot easier to work with, and what we'll do is spread that out, and distribute that as evenly as possible, which at this point is not super easy, but as you'll see, this is going to soften up fairly quickly, and it will become very flexible and easy to work with, so at this point, just do your best, which of course is all we ever ask, and then what we'll do is cover this, and let it cook over medium high heat for two minutes, before we uncover it, and give everything a stir, and what the plan is here, is to repeat this process every couple minutes, for as long as it takes, until our pasta is cooked to our liking, and after the first toss or two, we can probably back our heat down to somewhere between medium and medium high, right, as long as we have enough heat where this is simmering enthusiastically, we're in good shape, and please note, I used a skillet here, so it's easy to see what's going on, but a stock pot or a dutch oven is also a great choice for this, since one of the keys here is to have a nice tight fitting lid, which by the way, I really don't have, right, this pan was not sold with a matching lid, so the one I'm using is close, but it's not a perfect fit, which means we are going to have water vapor escaping, which could be the case when you're doing this, so if things are looking like they're drying out a little too much before our pasta is cooked, we might have to add a little splash of water to adjust, so that's something you'll have to keep an eye on, and yes, you can toss a little more broth in if you want, but what is escaping is pure water, so it just makes sense that's what we put back in, but anyway, whether we have to adjust or not, if everything goes according to plan, as soon as our liquids have reduced down, our pasta should be cooked perfectly, and again, if it's not, just add a little more liquid, but this was looking and feeling just about perfect, and of course, we'll test a noodle or two to make sure, and once we have tasted that and determined our pasta is cooked, we can adjust the seasoning with a little more salt if we need it, plus I like to add a little bit of Worcestershire sauce to finish this off, which I think makes this a little dirtier and a little more delicious, and that's it, once that's been mixed in, our dirty spaghetti is ready to transfer into a clean bowl, and then it is optional, but I think a nice sprinkling of finely sliced green onions is a perfect garnish, and once I had that scattered over, I grabbed a fork and a spoon, and I went in for the official taste, and that my friend, catchy provocative names aside, is just a profoundly delicious bowl of pasta, okay, usually when people use the term flavor bomb, they're almost always exaggerating, well here, the term flavor bomb is actually an understatement, and when you consider the ingredients we used, and how we seasoned it, that makes total sense, and by the way, the best reason to use a one pan method for pasta isn't to save us from doing extra cleanup, although that is a nice feature, but the best reason to use the one pan method is because our pasta is absorbing our flavorful sauce, and not just plain water, like it would if we used a traditional method, right, even if you generously salt your water like I've trained you to do, it's never going to have even close to as much flavor as this version here, oh, and before I sign off, I will mention one small regret, okay, I almost always use some kind of green pepper in the holy trinity, right, this time I didn't, because I already had some red and orange bell peppers around, but I think this slightly more bitter green pepper actually works better in this, since as you might know, a little bit of bitter makes everything better, but no matter what peppers you use, I think you're going to love this dirty spaghetti every bit as much as I did, which is why I really do hope you give it a try soon, so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual, and as always, enjoy!