Midcentury Delights: Baked Johnny Marzetti with Combination Salad
I was recently reminded that I hadn’t made something like this in a while, by one of Backyard Chef’s videos: Johnny Marzetti – One of the most important dishes in modern American cooking!. I felt like he seriously overstated that part, not being as personally familiar with American cooking in general, or some of the culinary traditions that this comes out of. Tomato meat sauces were hardly a new idea, especially on the Italian-American side of things–and with this type of dish, which started out from someone combining what they already had into a really tasty casserole. He is an excellent cook, with a good grounding in especially Northern English food where he’s from–and I would definitely recommend checking out his channel.
Anyway, growing up in one corner of the South, I didn’t hear this kind of meaty macaroni combination getting called Johnny Marzetti. That is a very Midwestern thing, and no wonder from the history of this version. The first time I encountered the name was in one spiral-bound Eastern Star community cookbook from the ’60s or ’70s that my mother picked up somewhere (and I wish I had now!). That one included multiple contributions of different Johnny Marzetti/Mazetti recipes, both baked like this one and “just” skillet versions like what get called “American goulash” some places.
If anything, we usually called this type of dish “beefaroni”, and ate a decent bit of it when I was growing up. The baked casserole variations make an excellent way of using up any leftover meaty spaghetti sauce you may have on hand. I am a pretty big fan of that sort of leftover casserole approach to this day.
But, this version sounded good enough to me that I had to make a batch, for the nostalgia value too. The basic ingredients required are very simple:
Not pictured yet: cheese, which was still in the fridge. The container of passata (basically just unseasoned tomato sauce, for Americans) is only there because I had half a thing of open passata left in the fridge. So, I used that instead of the tomato paste called for, and just cooked it down a little longer to take care of the extra liquid. It’s all good. The onion and pepper were prepped in advance, ready to go. We only had red sweet pepper (and Mr. Sweden prefers that), but I would have preferred green for this. The results were still delicious.
The only thing needed to make this gluten free as required, is using GF macaroni. Other short pasta shapes will work, and a lot of the time I will use fusilli/rotini or penne. But, just plain old elbow macaroni is classic here, so that’s what I also went with.
The Combination Salad
On that theme, the ingredients we had also suggested a take on my Mamaw’s “combination salad“, which she served pretty often while I was growing up. I think the idea there is that it’s like a combination of coleslaw and a green tossed salad. Apparently she wasn’t the only one to come up with that under the same name, judging by that other recipe I found. Only, her version always involved regular white cabbage, and her favorite salad dressing when I was a kid: a mixture of bottled Catalina or the similar orange French dressing with mayonnaise.
I was never a huge fan of that one, but I did already have a sauce similar to Russian dressing without the horseradish in the refrigerator, left over from eating with some fried chicken strips and oven potato wedges. Fill that out to a good consistency with a little more mayonnaise and the ketchup-type chili sauce (as called for in the Russian dressing, and I would use it for Catalina), and you’ve got something in the same general family of dressings which was perfect to help jazz up the cabbage salad.
If you’re in the US and would really like to run with the Marzetti theme, you could just go for one of the Marzetti’s bottled salad dressings. Apparently the same Teresa Marzetti who is usually credited with originating Johnny Marzetti out of their restaurant in Columbus, Ohio was also the one who started bottling and selling their salad dressings. The restaurant closed after she died in the early 1970s, but the salad dressing sideline has kept going. Teresa Marzetti really sounds like one determined business lady, maybe especially for one who started her first restaurant in 1896. Talk about your classic immigrant motivation and hustle! (Which I personally sort of fail to embody, btw.)
This hardly needs a recipe, and I was only working off vague recollections of what went into my Mamaw’s take on it. I just cut up a wedge of cabbage a lot like I would for slaw. To that, I added a sliced carrot, a handful of radishes also sliced, half a diced English-type cucumber, and part of a small onion minced. We didn’t have any fresh tomatoes and they’re not very good this time of year anyway. So, this also got part of the same diced red sweet pepper that went into the casserole. Use whatever vegetables you have and want, really.
Like I do with slaw now, I salted the veggies a little with some pepper added then too, mixed it all together, and let it wilt down for maybe half an hour while I worked on the casserole. Then, dress and adjust seasonings. I would also hold off on adding tomato until dressing time. Stash in the refrigerator, and let it marinate until you’re ready to eat. Yum!
Gluten Free Baked Johnny Marzetti
Ingredients
Method
- Fry the crumbled meat over medium heat in a deep skillet. Once it is partly cooked, add in the onion and sweet pepper.
- Once the onions and pepper are soft, and the meat is starting to brown, add in the minced garlic and fry a few more minutes.
- Start the oven preheating to 350℉ / 180℃.
- When the garlic is smelling cooked but not browning, add in the canned tomatoes. Scrape up any browned meat bits, and deglaze the pan with the tomato juices.
- Add in the other tomato products and the seasonings. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until your sauce gets fairly thick. Adjust the seasoning to taste.
- While that's simmering, cook the macaroni to al dente in salted water, and drain. If you're using one of the gluten free pastas that turns mushy very easily, cook it just short of what you'd normally consider al dente. This Semper brand that I'm using here oddly refuses to overcook and fall apart, so I boiled it to a regular eating consistency.
- Oil an 8×8/20×20 baking dish well, and set aside for the casserole.
- Stir the drained pasta into your saucy meat mixture.
- Time to start layering. Spread around half the saucy macaroni mixture across the bottom of the oiled dish.
- Then layer some of the cheese on top of that.The sliced American is a totally optional touch, but I thought it might add some extra smoothness in the middle. Nice thick slices of proper deli American would be much better, but cheese singles (actually sold as "burger cheese" here) are all I can get without making my own–which I will have to try one of these days! If you don't want this, just use extra grated cheese as usually called for.
- Layer on the rest of the macaroni and meat, then top with the rest of the cheese.I opted to sprinkle a little of this local "Italian" herb seasoning over the top of the cheese. This is also very optional.
- Ready for the oven!
- Cover with foil tented up a bit away from the cheese, and bake for 30 minutes or until it's very hot and bubbly all the way through.
- Remove the foil, and bake another 10 minutes or so to let the cheese brown a little.
- Let rest out of the oven for 10-15 minutes before digging in. This will make 4 big pieces, or 6 smaller servings. Enjoy!