The Once-Popular Spaghetti Casserole That Deserves A Culinary Comeback

Some dishes have names that are designed to impress. Spaghetti Aquitania is one example, with a reference to a historic French region known for its wine and black truffles. If you saw it on a menu, you'd probably expect something luxurious and sophisticated, prepared with imported ingredients or fancy techniques. But pull out an old recipe card, and you'll realize that the dish is actually an unfussy vintage casserole made from extremely common ingredients. No labor-intensive prep or trip to the specialty grocer required.

The recipe for spaghetti Aquitania can be found in a cookbook called "Caruso Recipes for Spaghetti, Elbow Macaroni, and Egg Noodles," which was first published by the Atlantic Macaroni Company in 1940. A baked pasta dish that combines spaghetti with cottage cheese, pimiento, carrots, onion, and minced parsley or green pepper, the mixture is cooked into a thick loaf that can be sliced and topped off with a mix of finely chopped pecans, almonds, and walnuts.

But how does it actually taste? According to the Glen and Friends Cooking YouTube channel, it's "relatively plain," though that's not necessarily a bad thing. "I like this. I can see myself eating this," as one host said, before calling it "comforting," "warming," and one of those foods that "you eat it and go, 'I want more.'"

As the hosts of Glen and Friends Cooking noted, spaghetti Aquitania can be easily customized by adding more herbs, spices, or proteins like beans or crumbled ground beef. You could also incorporate roasted vegetables like eggplant and zucchini, or use caramelized onions and roasted garlic to provide depth. Or try swapping out the cottage cheese with a milder ricotta for a creamier and slightly sweeter taste, which would work great paired with tomato sauce for something akin to a lasagna.

If you're curious but not completely sold on the possibilities of spaghetti Aquitania, there are tons of other easy baked pasta dishes that feature similar ingredients. Maybe you want to keep things classic with baked spaghetti, or try out cottage cheese in a high-protein baked ziti. You could even make a mac and cheese casserole using a simple roux, which Glen and Friends also brought up while talking about spaghetti Aquitania. But if what you're actually searching for is that nostalgia factor, there's always the possibility of whipping up a time-tested vintage casserole, like a pasta-based turkey Tetrazzini or some good, old-fashioned hamburger casserole.