For 2-4 people, use a glass 8x8 pan
Ingredients
- I box (8 oz) Cream cheese
- Pasta (I use macaroni, but my friends use spaghetti, it will be fine with whatever noodle you have)
- 1 lb ground beef
- Spaghetti sauce
- Mozerella Cheese (enough to cover the top)
- Cook pasta
- While the pasta is cooking, brown the beef. You can season it if you want. I never have and it's always tasted great. If you do want to season, I recommend oregeno or something that compliments your spaghetti sauce.
- Soften the cream cheese and spread evenly on the bottom of the pan.
- Drain the pasta, put the noodles on top of the cream cheese, the hamburger on top of that, pour spaghetti sauce enough to cover, then sprinkle the mozerella on top. (can refrigerate at his point and heat up later)
- Put in microwave or oven until cheese is melted.
3 comments:
This tasted good, but it didn't seem to work out like it was supposed to. We used our leftover spaghetti sauce (recipe on the site), which was delicious as always. However, the flavors didn't blend together well. It was just a layer of cream cheese, a layer of saucy noodles, and then a layer of mozzarella cheese. I'm guessing the problem was that the cheese I put on top was frozen so it started burning before it melted or before the rest of the dish was warm enough. So maybe I can cover it next time so the cheese doesn't cook too fast, or even just wait until the end to put the cheese on top. Still, it was in the oven a long time (45 minutes?) and the cream cheese didn't really melt. I used also penne noodles...maybe with spaghetti it would blend better. I also sprayed the pan with Pam...would that affect the cream cheese at all? I don't know. Any suggestions?
I use macaroni noodles so penne should work fine. The other thing I realized I forgot to put on was that I use a square pan, not a 9X13. If you're using that big of a pan then there isn't as much cream cheese. I've never done it in the oven. I always cook my stuff right then. If you are using leftovers I would throw them in the microwave for a bit just to heat it up and then do the layers. The cheese is definitely better in the oven (as from experience from Shepherd's pie)I always soften the cream cheese in the microwave so it has a head start. on softening
You did say a square pan and that's what I used. There was plenty of cream cheese, it just was still pretty solid and not combined with anything else. And it was softened prior to putting it in the pan. It seemed to be almost the same consistency after being baked as it was before! The sauce was frozen, so it was defrosted in the microwave first. Not as hot as freshly made, but certainly not cold. Another thing that might have contributed is that we didn't eat it right away. It was done sooner than expected so we had to wait until the fresh green beans were cooked. Another thought is that our sauce isn't very runny. So maybe with a thinner sauce it would sink to the bottom of the pan better and combine with the cream cheese to thin it out and blend in the flavors.
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