Johnny Marzetti
“A delicious and simple meal made with elbow macaroni & ground beef in tomato juice sauce”
Johnny marzetti is a common dinner dish from the area I live. The original recipe when it was first served here in Columbus, Ohio was at Marietta’s Restaurant. It consisted of ground beef with tomato sauce, onion, mushrooms, macaroni and topped with cheddar cheese and baked into a casserole. There are a lot of variations of this dish, for instance my wife’s family uses egg noodles and topped it with velveta cheese. The variation I’m used to in my family usually consists of elbow macaroni with ground beef in a tomato juice sauce, very simple and easy. I have found this can be somewhat bland simply because there just isn’t much in it. I found 3 different recipes in my grandmothers and great aunts collections. These recipes all had various different ingredients but the main ingredients were pretty much the same.
Remembering back to my mothers recipe she used to make, I decided to try a few changes of my own. First I made it with half ground beef and half sausage, just to add an extra layer of flavor. Another change I made was adding garlic along with the onions again for more flavor. I don’t usually keep tomato juice in the house on a regular basis, for this reason I ended up using whole peeled tomatoes since they were canned in tomato juice.
I stayed true to the johnny marzetti I was familiar with that my mother made by using elbow macaroni which is also used in the original recipe. The final dish had great flavor and reminded me a lot of my childhood. I hope you enjoy my version of Johnny Marzetti.
Also check out the original recipe at the link below:
http://ohiothoughtsblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/johnny-marzetti-recipe-and-history.html
It is wonderful and much different than my recipe. I highly recommend trying out both and maybe even come up with your own variation and share your favorite with future generation of your family.
Enjoy!!
Gather your ingredients, I don’t have the worcestshire sauce bottle because I added it after the pic
Brown meat, then remove and drain fat
Saute onions, pepper, celery, garlic in butter and olive oil
add dried herbs
add water and juice and tomatoes
add browned beef
add (uncooked) macaroni and parsley and worcheshire sauce
cover, reduce to simmer until pasta is tender
Serve and enjoy!!!!!!!
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp butter
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 lb ground sausage or pork
- 2 onions chopped
- 1 bell pepper chopped
- 4 celery stalks chopped
- 3 cloves garlic chopped
- 1-28oz can whole peeled tomatoes with juice
- 1 cup macaroni
- 1/2 tsp celery seed
- 1 tsp oregano
- salt
- pepper
- 2 Tbsp fresh parsley chopped
- 5 shakes worcestershire sauce
Instructions
- Remove tomatoes from juice & cut into rough chop
- Place juice in measuring cup & add water to equal 3&1/2 cups
- Brown the beef and pork in a pan over med-high heat
- Remove from pan and drain fat
- Wipe pan with paper towel to remove excess fat from pan
- Add butter and olive oil to pan
- Once heated add onion, celery, bell pepper & garlic to pan
- Cook until onions are tender
- Add celery seed & oregano
- Cook for about 30 seconds
- Add tomatoes to pan & stir to mix
- Add juice and water to pan
- Add meat, parsley, macaroni, & worcestershire sauce
- Stir to combine
- Cover & reduce to simmer
- Cook until pasta is tender
- Serve & enjoy
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Greg Gorton says
March 4, 2019 at 9:02 pmMy grandmother use to make something very simlar only hers had green olives and mushrooms. Thanks for sharing
simplyoldthymerecipes@gmail.com says
March 5, 2019 at 12:59 amThat sounds great. I will have to give that a try next time. Thanks for the idea.