Gluten-Free Garlic Braided Spaghetti Loaf / Spaghetti en Croute

Sick of making spaghetti sandwiches with soggy bits of sauce-soaked bread? Put the 'ghetti in the garlic bread and get ready for a taste explosion. Spaghetti en croute!

Yield 6 to 8 servings

Gluten-Free Garlic Braided Spaghetti Loaf

I have strict rules about spaghetti. Normally, I prefer it the second day, after it's been refrigerated and rewarmed. It tastes so much better. And two, there has to be bread of some sort. As a kid, spaghetti was always accompanied by buttered slices of Wonderbread and the combination was just delicious. This is how the adults big kids do spaghetti and bread: perfectly al dente noodles with chunky meaty sauce inside buttery, flaky pastry. What you can't see is the insane amount of gooey cheese lurking inside.

This recipe isn't going to be dubbed "healthy" but it is comforting, quick, delicious and kid-approved. Sometimes (particularly after those looooooong days where every little request is a full-fledged assertion of a strong-willed, stroppy toddler) comfort, speed and the sheer fact that food gets gobbled up and not used to redecorate the dining room wins out over healthy.

En croute is the fancy French word referring to anything that is enclosed in pastry and then baked. But really this is just what it looks like: spaghetti in puff pastry. Shop bought, puff pastry. I had seen about a half dozen spaghetti braid recipes on Pinterest but couldn't find one that I liked. So I decided to go my own route. Or should I say, my en croute? Ha!

My version uses lean turkey mince and super stringy Edam cheese. If you can't find Edam outside of Europe, then you could just use mozzarella or Swiss. I also throw a lot of herbs and spices at my spaghetti to really punch up the flavor. No bland pasta over here!

Pasta lovers might enjoy having a gander at this board, by the way:

Ingredients:

For the gluten-free glgarlic braided spaghetti loaf
1 pack shop bought gluten-free puff pastry
1 tbsp oregano
1 tbsp basil
1 tbsp onion powder
1 egg, beaten
300g cooked gluten-free spaghetti noodles
400g lean turkey mince/ground turkey
500g shop bought spaghetti sauce
Edam or other cheese, to taste
parsley, to taste
garlic powder, to taste

Instructions:

Gluten-Free Garlic Braided Spaghetti Loaf

1. Preheat your oven to 180C/350F.
2. Cook the spaghetti according to the packet for al dente,or for no longer than 8 minutes.
3. Brown the mince in butter along with salt, pepper, oregano,basil and onion powder, while the spaghetti cooks.
4. Add the sauce to the meat when it is nearly cooked. Reduce the heat. Strain the noddles and add them as well.
5. Remove from the heat and mix well to combine. Let everything settle for about five minutes to prevent melting the pastry with the piping hot pasta and sauce.
6. Roll out the pastry so it is thick but not too thin. Fringe each long side of the pastry by cutting 2 inch snips about 2 inches apart. Do this on both sides, leaving a nice patch of uncut pastry in the middle.
7. Pile the pasta and sauce onto the middle of the pastry. Top with as much cheese as you'd like.
8. Working on alternate sides, fold over one flap of cut dough, crossing it over the pastry. Work back and forth, overlapping the folds in the middle. Pinch folds together if necessary to keep them in place. You might find this bit a little slippery as it might seem like there's too much pasta. Just keep at it. It doesn't matter if pasta slips through the cracks or if one or two of the flaps tears away from the pastry.
9. Brush with a beaten egg once braided. Sprinkle over garlic powder and parsley.
10. Bake 20 to 30 minutes until the pastry is golden.