easy Jollibee-style Filipino spaghetti recipe

this world-famous spaghetti is sweet and can be easily made at home

reel for reference:

katlieu

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dear friend,

if you’ve had the Jollibee spaghetti before, chances are you either love it or hate it. The sauce is more sweet than savory, and there are slices of hot dog weiners instead of sausages. You won’t find parmesan cheese atop this spaghetti — instead, there’s a mop of shredded cheddar cheese. I’m a fan, honestly, and my husband, born and raised in Bacolod City (Philippines), enjoys it.

So naturally, I had to make it at home. And it’s easy. Boil up spaghetti until al dente and make the sauce.

We won’t make the sauce from scratch, though I imagine it’s not that hard either. I believe you can recreate the taste by sugaring up some tomato sauce. But, to be safe, just grab a bag of sweet-style spaghetti sauce, and Del Monte sells it, and so does UFC (the bag specifies it’s Filipino-style spaghetti sauce).

While Jollibee uses ground meat, I’ll be using mushrooms because I try not to cook with a lot of beef. Maybe once or twice a month for my family. I used Nathan’s hotdogs because I grew up in Coney Island, famous for Nathan’s hotdogs.

For my aromatics, I added garlic and red onion. The seasoning was equally simple: just a little salt, pepper, and, you guessed it, MSG. And, I cooked the sauce in a clay pot, but you can honestly cook it in a pot, frying pan, or skillet.

So, without further ado, right after I plug my latest cookbook…

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Kat Lieu’s easy copycat Jollibee Filipino-style spaghetti recipe

Serves: 4 people

Ingredients:

For the sauce:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil or neutral oil

• 1 medium onion, any color, diced

• 3 large garlic cloves, diced

• 4 hot dogs, sliced into coins

• 10 to 12 baby portabella mushrooms, diced small

• Sweet-style Filipino spaghetti sauce, about 2 cups and more as needed

• Salt and pepper to taste

• dash of MSG

+ Cooked spaghetti to al dente, enough for 4 people

+shredded cheese, cheddar

1. Heat your clay pot, skillet, saucepan, or frying pan over medium-high heat. Once hot, add the oil, then the diced onions. Stir and toss the onions and once they sweat, a few minutes, add the garlic. Once the garlic is aromatic, toss in the sliced hot dogs and cook until lightly golden. You want to keep the hotdogs soft, not crispy or too fried. Add the mushrooms and cook until they sweat and reduce in size, then add in the spaghetti sauce and stir to coat all the ingredients. You want a good amount of sauce, so you may need to add more.

2. Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste, and a dash of MSG to enhance the umami. The sauce is supposed to be sweet, but there’s a way to make it even more savory, if that’s what you desire, for my premium subscribers. <3

3. Once the sauce boils and bubbles, lower the heat to low and let it simmer for a few minutes.

4. Serve over your cooked spaghetti and top with shredded cheese and enjoy! For my premium subscribers, here’s a secret to make the sauce less sweet, if that’s your desire….