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Dinners
One-Pot Hidden Veggie Spaghetti
Update your everyday spaghetti with hidden veggies even the pickiest toddler won’t notice.
If your home cooking looks anything like mine, you probably have a pasta dish (or two or three) that you rotate through every week. As I’ve been learning how to feed a family of three instead of just my husband and I, I’ve figured out ways of sneaking a ton of veggies into the recipes I was already creating on a regular basis, like spaghetti.
Being a new parent has also made me get a lot more creative with my methods for cooking. Instead of using a different pot or pan for each component, I’ve found ways to make more of my favorite dishes into one-pot wonders. For pasta, that means cooking the noodles in the sauce itself. My One-Pot Hidden Veggie Spaghetti is basically any parent’s dream meal. Made in one pot with hidden veggies in 30 minutes… and it’s healthy. Need I say more?Â
Watch Me Make One-Pot Hidden Veggie Spaghetti
Table of Contents
Ingredients and Substitutions
How to Make It
Storing
Tips
Reasons to Love It
Spaghetti Recipe
Ingredients and Substitutions
Ground Meat
You can use ground turkey—I recommend getting 93% lean so it has a slightly higher fat content and therefore more flavor—or ground beef. Easily make this Hidden Veggie Spaghetti vegetarian by skipping the meat and using vegetable broth instead of chicken.
Veggies
The veggies I’m hiding in this spaghetti are carrots, zucchini, and eggplant. By grating the carrots and zucchini, they sort of behave how they do in zucchini bread, that is adding moisture and texture without big chunks of veggies flavor. The eggplant also has a nice creamy bite to it, but also remains pretty hidden. You can use any variety of eggplant you like.
Spaghetti
I used thin spaghetti with a cook time of 9 minutes for this recipe. You can use any pasta you like, but if it has a longer cooking time it may require more broth.
Marinara Sauce
Buying a jar of pre-made marinara sauce is a completely acceptable thing to do. It’s one of my favorite time-saving kitchen hacks when I’m combining it with other ingredients. I use Rao’s Homemade Marinara Sauce, but Sauz is another favorite brand.
Chicken Broth
Even if you use ground beef, I recommend using chicken broth because it’s a lot lighter than beef broth. You could use vegetable broth instead.
Heavy Cream
The heavy cream is optional, but it adds a nice creaminess to the spaghetti sauce. You could omit it or replace it with an additional ½ cup broth or water to make it dairy-free.
Onion, Garlic, and Spices
Unless I’m making a raw salsa or putting raw onions on a burger, I pretty much always cook with yellow onion. You can mince or grate fresh garlic cloves. I use my Harmony Mediterranean Blend as an all-purpose seasoning for so many recipes, but you could also use a similar Italian seasoning.
Parmesan
I like topping my spaghetti with freshly grated parmesan, or pecorino if you want something a little softer and saltier.
How to Make One-Pot Hidden Veggie Spaghetti
Step 1
Heat the olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven with a lid over medium-high heat. Add the ground turkey or beef and season with Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Cook, breaking up the meat with a masher or wooden spoon, until browned.
Step 2
Add the onion, garlic, grated zucchini, carrot and eggplant. Cook, stirring occasionally, about 7 minutes, until the vegetables are very soft and the onion is translucent.
Step 3
Stir in the marinara and broth and bring to a boil. Add the spaghetti, pressing it into the liquid as it softens. Once the spaghetti is fully submerged, cover, turn heat to medium-low, and cook until the pasta is al dente, stirring occasionally so it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pot.
Step 4
Once the pasta is tender and the sauce has thickened, stir in the heavy cream to form a creamy sauce. Serve with additional Parmesan on top.
Storing and Reheating One-Pot Spaghetti
Store your Hidden Veggie Spaghetti in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days. To reheat, microwave with an added sprinkle of water for 1.5-2 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds. Top with fresh parmesan.
Tips for Making the Best One-Pot Spaghetti
- When cooking the ground meat, leave it undisturbed for a few minutes to let it brown.
- To save even more time, you can chop the onion and garlic in a food processor instead of chopping by hand.
- Use the large holes on a block grater for the zucchini and carrots as opposed to the smaller holes.
- When choosing a jarred marinara sauce, make sure not to get plain tomato sauce. But you also don’t want to choose a sauce with a lot going on. We want something high-quality with a simple ingredient list.
- Keep an eye on the doneness of the spaghetti. It should be slightly undercooked (almost al dente) before adding in the heavy cream. You want to avoid it getting mushy.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- This is a true one-pot pasta recipe with the pasta noodles cooking in the sauce itself. This means fewer dishes and much simpler prep!
- The hidden veggies in this spaghetti recipe are perfect for picky toddlers or adults who are in the mood for pasta, but also want to add a few healthy ingredients. Pasta is a great way to sneak in those veggies!
- By using ground meat, a jar of pre-made marinara sauce, and grating two of the three veggies, this recipe requires very minimal prep work.
- Nutritionally, this recipe pretty much has everything you could ask for. You have protein from the ground meat, fiber and micronutrients from the veggies, carbs from the pasta, and fats from the heavy cream (if using). It really is an all-in-one meal everyone will love!
