Leftover Spaghetti Bake Recipe (2024)

Leftover Spaghetti Bake is an easy way to really transform leftover spaghetti into a different meal the second night. You can use spaghetti with meat sauce or with meatballs in this recipe too! The sky is the limit.

🔑 Key to Success #1 – Choose Your Own Adventure
🔑 Key to Success #2 – Bake Covered
🔑 Key to Success #3 – Sprinkle on the Cheese
📌 Save this Leftover Spaghetti Bake to your favorite Easy Meals Board!

This Baked Spaghetti recipe was born from the desire to have something besides leftover spaghetti the second night.

Spaghetti is a favorite around our house, and we eat it frequently.

But it makes a lot, and there’s always enough for another night’s dinner.

Sometimes I just want to do something different than warming up the leftover spaghetti in the microwave though.

So, this is how I throw the spaghetti together in a casserole dish to make it an entirely new meal.

This is a very popular recipe on our blog so I hope you enjoy it too!

Disclosure – I may get a small commission for purchases made through affiliate links in this post.

🔑 Key to Success #1 – Choose Your Own Adventure

This basic leftover spaghetti dish can be customized a zillion different ways but it all starts with your favorite spaghetti recipe.

My son, Noah, loves spaghetti and meatballs. He insists on the meatballs.

So my leftover spaghetti almost always has meatballs in it.

First, combine your spaghetti noodles and your sauce if not already done so.

You can add additional meat or additional vegetables to your spaghetti if you’d like.

You can add onions or peppers or carrots if you’d like but make sure they’re already cooked/soft before you add them since this is a quick-cooking pasta dish.

The amount of pasta you have is not super important either.

🔑 Key to Success #2 – Bake Covered

After you add the Italian seasoning, eggs, butter, and Parmesan cheese, spread the pasta into your greased baking dish and cover the whole thing with aluminum foil. (Does anyone still call it tin foil?)

You’ll bake the pasta for about 30 minutes covered with foil.

Make sure the foil is fully covering the pasta so that it doesn’t dry out in the oven.

If you reach 30 minutes and you feel like your pasta is not warm enough, pop it back into the oven covered for up to 15 minutes more.

🔑 Key to Success #3 – Sprinkle on the Cheese

I like to top this Spaghetti Bake with freshly shredded cheddar cheese but you could also use mozzarella cheese for a more traditional Italian spaghetti dish.

However, I’m a big lover of cheddar cheese on spaghetti, so I hope you’ll give it a shot.

After you’ve sprinkled the cheese on top of the oven-warmed spaghetti bake, return it to the oven for another 10 minutes or so, uncovered, until the cheese is melted and gooey.

You may also use a broiler to melt the cheese on top of this dish if you have one.

Just keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t become too brown!

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that you can make this dish with fresh pasta as well.

I’d suggest using a half-pound of cooked pasta noodles (does not have to be spaghetti!) and a jar of prepared sauce.

I prefer the Prego Traditional pasta sauce but you can use your favorite variety or even homemade spaghetti sauce.

📌 Save this Leftover Spaghetti Bake to your favorite Easy Meals Board!