A Slice of the ’70s: Spaghetti Pie
Updated: Sep 21
Spaghetti Pie was one of those childhood dinners that felt like gold.
My mother made it only occasionally because she always said it was a lot of work, which, of course, only made us want it more. Thin spaghetti tossed with butter, Parmesan, and egg became the crust, followed by ricotta, meat sauce, and mozzarella. It was baked in layers and cut into wedges, literally like a pie.
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I wanted to preserve my mother's original recipe, but I also wanted to make Spaghetti Pie again and find out whether it was actually as good as I remembered.
It was.
In fact, after making it again for the first time in years, I have only one question: Why did we ever stop making Spaghetti Pie?
The Original
My mother's recipe is wonderfully representative of its time. Thin spaghetti is tossed with butter, Parmesan, and eggs and pressed into pie plates. A layer of cottage cheese or ricotta goes on next, followed by a simple ground beef and tomato sauce. Mozzarella goes on toward the end of baking, and the instructions finish with the wonderfully straightforward: “Cut as you would a pie.”
There is nothing particularly sophisticated about it. That is also part of its charm.
For my version, I didn't want to reinvent Spaghetti Pie or turn it into something it was never supposed to be. I simply wanted to give the ingredients a little more attention while preserving everything I remembered about it.
I kept the thin spaghetti, because the size of the pasta matters. I gave the crust a little more butter and Parmigiano Reggiano. I used whole milk ricotta and gave it just enough egg to help it hold together. Instead of the original canned tomato mixture, I made a quick meat sauce with ground beef, passata, tomato paste, onion, garlic, oregano, and a little basil.
And I kept the mozzarella. A lot of mozzarella.
The magic happens underneath all of it. The thin spaghetti, butter, Parmigiano, and egg bake together into a tender, cohesive base. It isn't crunchy like a traditional pie crust, and it isn't simply a pile of pasta either. The strands settle together and hold the ricotta and meat sauce above them, so when you cut the finished pie, you actually get a wedge.
It works remarkably well.
It was also time to introduce my grandsons to Spaghetti Pie. There is something wonderfully full circle about taking a dish you coveted as a child and putting it in front of the next generation.
I say bring back Spaghetti Pie.
Mom’s Original Spaghetti Pie
Makes 4 (8¾ inch) pies; serves 8 to 10
First, the recipe as my mother made it, preserved in its original measurements and wonderfully 1970s simplicity.
Ingredients
2 (8 oz.) packages thin spaghetti
2 Tbsp. butter
½ cup Parmesan cheese
2 eggs, well beaten
2 lb. ground beef
1 cup chopped onion
2 (6 oz.) cans tomato paste
2 cups peeled tomatoes, plus ½ cup juice
2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 cup cottage or ricotta cheese
½ cup mozzarella cheese
Make the Pies
Cook the spaghetti. Toss with the butter, Parmesan, and beaten eggs. Divide among four pie plates and press over the bottoms and sides to form crusts.
Brown the ground beef with the onion and drain. Add the tomato paste, tomatoes and juice, sugar, oregano, and garlic powder.
Spread the cottage or ricotta cheese over the spaghetti crusts. Top with the meat mixture.
Bake at 350°F for 20 minutes. Top with the mozzarella and bake for another 10 minutes. Cut as you would a pie.
My Revamped Spaghetti Pie
Makes 4 (8¾ inch) pies; serves 8 to 10
I didn't want to reinvent Spaghetti Pie. I wanted to keep everything I loved about it while giving the ingredients a little attention. The spaghetti crust is richer with butter and Parmigiano Reggiano, the ricotta gets a little structure, and a quick meat sauce replaces the canned tomato mixture. The result still tastes like Spaghetti Pie, which was exactly the point.
The Meat Sauce
2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
900 g (2 lb.) ground beef
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbsp. tomato paste
120 ml (½ cup) dry red wine
500 g passata
2 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. dried basil
salt and pepper, to taste
The Spaghetti Crust
454 g (1 lb.) thin spaghetti
57 g (4 Tbsp.) butter
100 g (1 cup) finely grated Parmigiano Reggiano
2 large eggs, beaten
The Ricotta Layer
454 g (16 oz.) whole milk ricotta
1 large egg
50 g (½ cup) finely grated Parmigiano Reggiano
salt and pepper, to taste
The Topping
454 g (1 lb.) whole milk mozzarella, grated
Make the Pies
Heat the oil in a large skillet. Sauté the onion until soft. Add the beef and brown well; drain if needed.
Add the garlic and tomato paste and cook 1 minute. Add the wine and reduce briefly. Stir in the passata, oregano, basil, salt, and pepper. Simmer uncovered for 20 to 25 minutes, until thick.
Cook the thin spaghetti just past al dente. Drain and toss thoroughly with the butter. Let cool, then toss with the Parmigiano and beaten eggs.
Mix the ricotta, egg, Parmigiano, salt, and pepper.
Butter four 8¾ inch pie pans. Divide the spaghetti among them, pressing over the bottoms and slightly up the sides. Layer with the ricotta, then the meat sauce.
Bake at 375°F for 25 minutes. Top with the mozzarella and bake 20 minutes more, until melted and lightly golden.
Rest 15 minutes before cutting into wedges.
A Modern Spaghetti Pie
I wouldn't change much about the version I made. That is the whole point. But if you don't eat meat, this recipe practically begs for a mushroom version. Brown mushrooms deeply until they develop real color and use them in place of the ground beef. Cremini would work beautifully, and a handful of rehydrated dried porcini would add even more depth.
Keep the buttered spaghetti crust. Keep the ricotta. Keep the mozzarella.
Spaghetti Pie doesn't need reinvention.
It just needs to come back.
And What Do You Drink With Spaghetti Pie?
This turned out to be almost as much fun as making the recipe.
I tried a couple of more serious Italian reds. On paper, they made perfect sense. At the table, they didn't. The richer wines added weight to a dish that already had plenty of it.
Then I opened the Lambrusco.
That was it.
Lambrusco Deserves Another Look
Pairing Lambrusco with Spaghetti Pie initially appealed to me because there was something wonderfully retro about putting the two together. Both had their American heyday in the 1970s, and there was something fun about bringing them back to the table together.
But the pairing isn't a gimmick.
For my Spaghetti Pie revival, I chose Lini 910 Labrusca Rosso, a dry, sparkling red from Emilia. Made primarily from Lambrusco Salamino with a small amount of Ancellotta, it has the bright fruit, freshness, and lively character this rich dish needs. The bubbles and acidity cut through the butter, ricotta, Parmigiano, and melted mozzarella, while the dark berry fruit stands up beautifully to the tomato and meat sauce. Instead of adding more weight to an already rich dish, the wine refreshes everything around it.
That is what good Lambrusco does so well. In Emilia, this has long been wine for the table, and the region is home to some seriously rich food. Lambrusco's bright fruit, acidity, and bubbles make sense beside it.
Its story, however, is far more interesting than the reputation it acquired in America.
Lambrusco belongs to Emilia, where its history reaches back thousands of years. Classical writers including Virgil, Cato, and Pliny wrote about vines and winemaking in the region, and by the late 1500s, wines from around Modena and Parma were being described for their pleasant sparkle. Lambrusco eventually developed into a family of grapes and wines that can be red or rosé and range from dry to sweet.
Then America got involved.
Riunite entered the American market around 1969 with an easy drinking, semi sweet style of Lambrusco that proved enormously successful. By the 1970s, Riunite had become a cultural phenomenon, and from 1976 through 2000 it was the No. 1 imported wine in the United States. In 1981, Americans reportedly drank nearly 135 million bottles of it. At its peak in 1985, Riunite sold 11.5 million cases.
If you are of a certain age, you probably remember the advertising too. Riunite wasn't marketed as something to analyze over dinner. It was fun. Picnics. Barbecues. Ski trips. Pools. Friends. And, famously, Riunite served on ice. The advertising was impossible to forget, and it helped cement an entire generation's idea of what Lambrusco was.
The problem was that America's love affair with that sweet, inexpensive style eventually obscured the much larger world of Lambrusco. As American wine drinkers moved toward drier and more serious wines, Lambrusco became something many people thought they had outgrown.
We may have thrown out something very good along with the ice cubes.
Lambrusco can be dry, semidry, semisweet, or sweet, with multiple Lambrusco varieties and appellations throughout Emilia. At its best, it offers vibrant fruit, refreshing acidity, and that wonderful frizzante lift that makes you want another sip rather than exhausting your palate.
And there was something undeniably fun about sitting there with a slice of Spaghetti Pie and a glass of Lambrusco.
Maybe neither one needed to be rescued from the 1970s. Maybe we just needed to remember why we liked them in the first place.
Sometimes the 70s got it right!
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