How do you serve your spaghetti?

The noodles have to be cooked separately in boiling water, you can’t cook them in the sauce. I cook whatever sauce separately, and then each person gets to choose how much sauce goes on top.

I serve spaghetti in bowls so each person can mix the sauce through.

@zenvelo I meant after you cook the noodles…do you cook the noodles in together with the sauce?

With marinara or meat sauce I put the sauce on top of the pasta (I prefer Linguine). Any other type of sauce I mix the pasta with the sauce before serving.

I only have a couple recipes where I actually cook the pasta in the sauce or soup. They are more like hamburger helper type things, and it uses short pastas like mini shells or macaroni

@AshlynM No, because the spaghetti is already cooked, and any more cooking will break down the noodle. ( I was going to use the technical term “mush it up”.)

Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Add pasta and stir once with a wooden spoon. Water will begin to boil again. Cook pasta no more than 5 to 10 minutes until al dente (“to the teeth”, meaning slightly chewy). Drain immediately into a collender.

While the pasta is cooking, add olive oil to a medium-hot sautē pan. Add crushed tomatoes (fresh, boxed, or canned), minced or crushed garlic, white wine, a little of the pasta water, and salt & pepper. You can also toss in fresh basil or baby spinach toward the end This is all to taste. Bring sauce to a simmer and pour over drained pasta in a large bowl or deep platter.

Grate fresh Romano and/or Parmasan cheese over the pasta.

Eat and enjoy.

I make a very delicious (and very expensive) spaghetti sauce. When I make it, I make lots of it.
I serve the sauce on top of the noodles. That way people can control how much sauce they get, and you can freeze the remaining sauce, which you can’t do if the noodles are mixed in.

Noodles on plate with sauce ladled on top.

I only mix the two when I make carbonara. Otherwise the sauce goes on top of the noodles.

I eat pasta and a heavy red sauce 2–3 times a week usually. I mix the pasta with a little olive oil and salt & pepper in a bowl, and then pour the sauce on top, and maybe put some parmesan.

I only eat plain pasta if I am sick. That is invalid food for me :-p

@Trillian: MMMM carbonara :) Almost makes me wanna stop being veg. :)

I put the sauce on top of the noodles but I cook the sauce and noodles seperately.

On a plate, usually.

I usually serve them separately, I have an aunt that is allergic to garlic and onions so I learned to make at least two sauces, one for her and one for the rest of the family. Now I usually make one alfredo style sauce and one marina style sauce when I make spaghetti and let each guest choose their own.

Oh, well. It depends on what dish I’m making. If I’m making spaghetti with tomato sauce (with or without meat), then the pasta goes on the plate and the sauce on top. If I’m making pasta frangipani or the artichoke heart and ricotta recipe from Moosewood, I’ll mix the pasta and the sauce before serving.

But if we’re only talking about red sauce, then it is definitely separate.

I made spaghetti sauce on Memorial Day Monday. I cook the sauce all day. When we are ready to eat, I boil the spaghetti noodles (salt and olive oil in the water), drain, rinse and place the spaghetti on each person’s plate and top it with the sauce and freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. Mmmm mmmm

Sometimes I just take the bare spaghetti and then mix them with a massive amount of parmesan and some basilikum. truly intense.

This is how I do it: Cook the noodles. Serve the sauce separately so that everyone can choose how much sauce they want.. . A good spaghetti table has a bowl of noodles, a bowl of sauce, a bowl of freshly grated parmesan, a bowl of shredded “three cheese”, a garlic shaker, and a bowl of meatballs. Mmmm.. I’m hungry.

I always boil the pasta seperately first. I never mix the pasta with my sauce, even when I’m placing the leftovers in the fridge. I also never put cheese in my sauce, because not everybody likes cheese on their spaghetti and out of common courtesy I allow people to add it on their own. I always offer the cheese on the table, despite the fact that I don’t even like parmesan or romano cheese.

According to the Sopranos and Italian friends I have known, you cook the noodles and sauce separately, and serve separately. However, you do need to drain the noodles and then pour some of the sauce in and toss. This keeps the noodles from sticking together, and gives the noodles a chance to absorb some sauce, which gives it a good flavor, but the main purpose for doing this is so that when you do serve it, the sauce that you put on top won’t run off the noodles as much.

@Skaggfacemutt That’s a great idea. I have never heard of this but I’m going to do it from now on. Thank you!

Many different ways depending on the particular pasta. Recently I just started adding butter, parsley or basil and pepper to cooked pasta then serving the sauce on top. And like @Skaggfacemutt said, mixing a ladle or two of sauce through separately is smart and tasty.

I like to toss a little bit of sauce and a plate portion of noodles in the pan, real quick to just give a light color and coat to the noodles then ladle sauce on the top, the amount to the person’s liking.

With noodles, on a plate.

Um, I get it served to me. With sauce all over and cheese.

Pasta in the plate, Marinera on top. Pasta tossed with garlic, olive oil and parmesan.

I cook them separately and put the sauce on top when I serve it. Spag-bol is one of the few things I can cook well.

When I was a kid (about age 8–10) I was a very fussy eater and one of the few things I enjoyed was spaghetti with grated cheese and ketchup.

According to your original question, actually I don’t! .. If their too lazy to serve themselves then they can go hungry, bow! bow! bow..!