Spaghetti Sauce With Cream Cheese

Name: Spaghetti Sauce With Cream Cheese
Prep time: 3 min
Cook time: 8 min
Total time: 11 min
Ingredients: 6 oz Spaghetti; 5 oz Cream Cheese; 2 cloves Garlic; 1 tablespoon Olive Oil

Elevate your spaghetti game with that spaghetti sauce with cream cheese. All you will need to make them are a little bit of cream cheese, garlic cloves, olive oil, and a little bit of freshly chopped parsley in the end for extra color and freshness on your plate. An easy dish that is perfect for busy weeknights and that lets you customize it to your preferences.

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Vintage plate with rounded spaghetti with cream cheese and parsley.

Are you looking for a simple but delicious recipe for the regular spaghetti plate? Try this rich and creamy Spaghetti Sauce with Cream Cheese!

The addition of cream cheese in that recipe will make them super creamy and fresh garlic that is fried in olive oil will provide a nice depth of flavor.

This recipe is very easy to follow as you will need only a few simple steps to follow and it will come together quickly.

Want to go further? You can customize it by adding a few vegetables like some ground meat, or mushrooms.

Give a try to this recipe and enjoy a hearty and satisfying pasta dish that will impress everybody.

In This Post: show

👩‍🍳 What You Will Find in This Post?

How to avoid overcooking pasta. On what you should pay attention to.
What are the best substitutes for the ingredients if you don’t have some of the asked ingredients?
How to get the best texture from your pasta.

🥰 Why You Will Love This Recipe?

It is a quick recipe and it asks only for a few simple ingredients.
You can easily transform this recipe into a vegetarian one if you will substitute the cream with a vegetarian alternative.
It is suitable for small kids that are picky eaters. They will love this creamy texture.

🥘 Ingredients and Substitutes

Top view of a white plate with spaghetti, cream cheese, fresh garlic and olive oil.

Pasta. I used spaghetti but you can follow the same recipe using other types of pasta. Including egg-based pasta.
Garlic. I used fresh garlic, but if you don’t like the strong garlic taste, you can exclude it altogether, or use dry granulated garlic because it has a less intense taste.
Cream cheese. You can add other types of soft cheeses. A few suggestions will be Gorgonzola, Brie, and Camembert. You may consider also adding parmesan for a more nutty taste.
Olive oil. If you want to intensify the aroma of cream cheese, you may consider using butter instead of olive oil. I prefer olive oil in combination with lightly fried garlic because this combination offers a Mediterranean flavor.

👩‍🍳 Step-by-step Directions

The longest part of this recipe is the pasta boiling process. Because of that, to have everything ready at the same time, I’ll recommend starting boiling the pasta first.

For that, take a big saucepan and pour in it water. Once the water started to boil, add a teaspoon of salt, for every 4 cups of water you used.

As the cooking time of the pasta differs from one manufacturer to another one, cook the pasta according to the instructions indicated on the package.

Rounded spaghetti boiling in hot water on a stove.

5 minutes before the pasta will be cooked according to the instructions, take another frying pan, heat it up, and add the olive oil and garlic to it.

Fry the garlic and olive oil together for about 1 minute to flavor the oil a little.

Quick Note: Do not fry the garlic too much. Just wait until you will notice a pleasant aroma of garlic. Otherwise, you may risk getting a bitter taste.

Close look of two crushed garlic cloves frying in olive oil.

Add the cream cheese to the pan and stir continuously for 1-2 minutes on low heat to melt the cream cheese and mix it with the flavored garlicky oil.

Melted cream cheese in a frying pan on a stove.

2 minutes before the pasta is fully cooked, move it from the pan in which you boiled it to the frying pan in which we have the cream cheese and garlicky oil.

After that, above that composition, add about 1/4 cup of water in which we just boiled the pasta.

Start mixing the pasta intensely to create a creamy sauce that will coat the pasta more evenly.

Quick Note: If you will remove the pasta from the boiling water and will cook last two minutes in the sauce, you will get creamier pasta with a more pleasant and intense taste.

Cooked pasta over melted cream cheese in a frying pan.

Adjust the density of the sauce. Gradually add the boiling water, little by little, and cook the pasta in the sauce, until it will become “al-dente”.

Quick Note: I recommend not overcooking the pasta because you risk losing its texture and becoming difficult to digest.

Cooked pasta mixed with melted cream cheese in a frying pan.

In the end, serve the pasta while it is hot. For an extra taste, consider sprinkling over the pasta a little extra virgin olive oil, and for an extra freshness of taste and color, some freshly chopped aromatic herbs.

Some suggestions for aromatic herbs that you can use would be parsley, basil, thyme, and basil.

Restaurant style plate spaghetti with cream cheese and chopped parsley.

🏆 Expert Tips. What to Pay Attention To?

Do not boil the pasta in the water until the end. For the last 2-3 minutes of cooking time, is recommended to move the pasta to the sauce and cook it there. By doing that, you will avoid getting dry or overcooked pasta.
If you want the pasta to absorb more sauce, use pasta with holes, and the surface is rough. A perfect example would be “penne rigate”.
For the last stage, consider adding the boiling water little by little. This way you will have more control over the consistency of the sauce and you will avoid getting a liquid sauce.

♻️ Make Ahead, Storage and Heating:

Can I Prepare It Ahead?

I don’t recommend cooking pasta ahead of time because you will lose the texture. By cooking the pasta ahead of time, it will absorb the sauce completely and will become drier and a bit overcooked.

How to Reheat It?

If you had cooked a large quantity of cream cheese pasta and you have some pasta leftovers, I recommend you to heat it in the pan on the stove, adding a little cream. Thus, you will get a creamy sauce again, but unfortunately, the pasta will lose its “al-dente” texture as when it was initially cooked.

How Long Does it Last in the Fridge?

If you don’t mind the loss of texture, you can keep it safe in the fridge for up to 3-4 days in an air-tight container.

Can You Freeze the Cream Cheese Pasta?

If you are not a big fan of the texture of “al-dente” pasta, then you can cook it in a larger quantity, and keep it in the freezer for 2-3 months. After freezing, you will have to thaw the pasta in the refrigerator overnight and reheat the dish according to the instructions above.

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