A tradition of the untraditional

Cheese spaghetti. Most people's first impressions reach far from the classic red marinara sauce we associate so well with the word "spaghetti". Most people don't even know what to think.

Cheese spaghetti is a lot more simple than most people's imaginations lead them to believe. It's basically a cheese sauce over spaghetti noodles.

The ingredients for the sauce are pretty simple. The recipe calls for flour, butter, milk, cheese,and one, 8 oz. can of tomato sauce.

The base of the sauce is made up of what the French called a roux (pronounced "roo"). The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines it as, "a cooked mixture of flour and fat used as a thickening agent in a soup or sauce."

Now, don't go thinking that the base is lard and flour. It's simply just melted butter in a sauce pan. I use salted, stick butter, and I use a good half an inch chunk. Once it's melted, I pour a little bit of flour, just enough so that it dissolves into the butter. The roux should run off of the spoon pretty smoothly, it should be just barely a liquid. All of this should be done off of the heat of the stove.

Once the roux is mixed, open up the tomato sauce and pour it in. Next is the milk. I use two cups of milk, which is the equivalent to 8 oz. so I just use the can of tomato sauce as a measuring cup. I pour two in and let it warm up over medium heat.

Now, the good stuff comes out. I always buy the sharpest cheddar cheese I can find because the sharper the cheddar, the more cheddar flavor there is in the sauce. I slice the cheese up and throw it piece by piece into the sauce, stirring the entire time so that the cheese doesn't melt to the bottom of the pan. It helps if you throw in three or four slices and wait till you see the cheese melted and swirling around in the sauce.

The sauce itself can need quite a bit of salt, so I add in some seasoned salt to my liking. I'm a salt fiend, so my salt might not be exactly what your salt liking is. It's all a matter of opinion.

It's pretty easy to make a larger batch of the sauce too. Just add either more milk or more cheese, or both, and the sauce magically expands. Crazy concept, I heard it's got something having to do with physics or some smart subject like that.

But wait, we can't forget about the noodles! It's best to start the water boiling first and by the time the sauce is done cooking, the noodles are usually done. Throw a couple of handfuls of dry spaghetti noodles in the water and don't forget to stir every now and then.

The recipe is pretty flexible, with the exception of the main ingredients, but it's become a delicious habit of mine to make it, almost weekly now. My roommates, who have continually become my taste testers love the stuff and ask me quite often to make it for them. Even if they ask me half way through, I can still make more. That's the great part about it.

As far as where the recipe came from, my dad has cooked it for my family for a while, and my grandparents have been cooking it for him for as long as he can remember.

I asked my dad where it came from, and he wasn't to sure but he knew that we are not the only family who cooks it. Apparently there have been a handful of other families who know about the odd recipe. The dish is, surprisingly, known outside of my family. Where it originated from, or how it was came about is beyond me.


It's a good recipe and it's fun, cheap and easy to make. Just make sure you don't leave the sauce pan in the sink for more than a couple days, it starts to smell like rotten eggs. But I wouldn't know that from experience or anything...