Balsamic Vinaigrette Spaghetti

Hungry, but don’t know what to cook?

Are you hungry, but not sure what to cook? Have you looked in your pantry and don’t see much of anything in there either? I found myself in this same position one night. I found spaghetti in my pantry and thought ok what can I do differently with spaghetti? I did not want to make the typical spaghetti with tomato sauce, meat, etc. I did not have any meat or even sauce to go with this. Sometimes I find myself having to be creative because I have to wait until the next paycheck to buy more ingredients. I decided right away I wanted to make a Balsamic Vinaigrette Spaghetti, but I needed to make sure I had balsamic vinaigrette.

I went from the pantry to the fridge and did some brainstorming. In my fridge, I found sun-dried tomatoes, almond milk, balsamic vinaigrette, a lemon, butter, and fresh green onion from my garden. I concluded I could use all of these ingredients for my special spaghetti experiment!

For my special spaghetti I need some seasonings. I took a look in my spice cabinet and I can use flour, corn starch, garlic, parsley, Italian seasoning, olive oil, salt, and pepper. I was not sure what I would do with all of these ingredients at first, which is why I wing it!

Balsamic Vinaigrette Spaghetti Ingredients

• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 green onion
• 1 lemon
• 9 sun dried tomatoes
• balsamic vinaigrette
• milk or almond milk
• flour
• Italian seasoning
• corn starch
• parsley
• butter
• salt and pepper

Balsamic Vinaigrette Spaghetti Sauce Ingredients

• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 green onion
• flour
• corn starch
• balsamic vinaigrette
• almond milk or regular milk
• lemon juice and zest
• 9 sundried tomatoes

Balsamic Vinaigrette Spaghetti Instructions

The first step to prepare Balsamic Vinaigrette Spaghetti is to wash and prep the lemon, green onion, and garlic cloves. Grab a cutting board and a knife and chop up the green onion into small pieces. After you chop up the green onions, grab the three garlic cloves and mince the garlic. The next step is to slice the lemon in half and zest your shavings into a small bowl. After you have prepped, you will need to grab a large pot and fill it halfway up with water. Put the pot on the stove and turn the heat to high. I would suggest that you add a pinch of salt to speed up the boiling process.

Balsamic Sauce

While you wait for the water to boil, you can start on the sauce. Get a large sauce pan, olive oil, minced garlic, chopped green onion, 9 sun dried tomatoes, and half of the chopped lemon. Put the large sauce pan on the stove on medium heat and put in one tablespoon of olive oil. Let the olive oil heat up and swirl it around in the pan. After the olive oil has heated up, throw in the minced garlic, chopped green onion, 1 tablespoon of Italian seasoning, half squeezed lemon, lemon zest and the 9 sun dried tomatoes. Get your spatula out and move around all the ingredients in the pan. Keep doing this until the garlic and tomatoes brown a bit. Throw in one tablespoon of flour and mix until well combined. After you mix the flour until well combined, you will want to put in a cup of regular milk or almond milk(I used almond milk). Turn down the heat to medium so the sauce does not boil over. Add in two tablespoons of balsamic vinaigrette. At this point, your sauce will look very white, do not panic it gets better. Stir around the sauce for about 5 minutes. After the 5 minutes is up, you will want to add 1 teaspoon of cornstarch. Stir the cornstarch until it is well combined. You will want to keep stirring the sauce, it should thicken since we added the cornstarch. Once it has thickened add salt and pepper to the sauce. If you like, you may want to add more balsamic vinaigrette. Keep your sauce on low after you are done with this step.

Spaghetti Instructions

Once your pot of water has started to boil, put in half of your 16oz spaghetti in the pot. The particular spaghetti I have takes about nine minutes to cook. Move the spaghetti around in the pot so it does not stick together. Once the spaghetti has finished, you will want to keep one cup of the water from the pot. Get a strainer and pour your spaghetti out on it. All of the water should be gone from the pot at this point. Grab your spaghetti from the strainer and pour it back into the pot. At this point add in your 1 cup of pasta water. You will then want to add a tablespoon of butter to your spaghetti and stir it around until it melts. Stir the pasta around until it is soaked in. Now you will want to grab your sauce and pour it onto the pasta. Stir the sauce in until it is well combined. Taste the spaghetti and see if you need to add any extra lemon juice, splash of balsamic vinaigrette, salt, or pepper. All you need to do now is grab a plate and enjoy!