If you’re Italian American, you may know what a spaghettata is (pronounced spa-get-TAH-tah). It’s like a cookout, but it takes place indoors, with spaghetti. In other words, it’s a spaghetti party (or simply a pasta party, if you serve a different type of pasta).

It can be an impromptu lunch or dinner, following a card game or board game, or after a soccer match (or your favorite American sport). The key word is casual.

In Italy, somebody says, “Facciamo una spaghettata”—let’s have a spaghetatta—and the meal is on.

Everyone migrates to the kitchen. A big pot of water is put on the stove for the spaghetti (or any other pasta cut). The rest of the ingredients include what’s in every Italian pantry.

Everybody helps out, and soon the spaghetti feast is on the table.

You can toss in “anything in the kitchen,” such as fresh, frozen, or jarred veggies (artichoke hearts, peas, roasted red peppers), tuna, or anchovies.

If you have chicken, seafood, sausage, or bacon to toss in, do it. If you don’t have Parmesan or other grating cheese, add blue cheese, goat cheese, or feta.

> The different types of pasta.

> The history of pasta.
 
 
RECIPE: BASIC INGREDIENTS FOR A SPAGHETTI PARTY
 

 
 
TOPPINGS

There are many more (e.g. fried eggplant), but these are the easiest. Plus, you can make it a “potluck” by asking each guest to bring a topping (but you may want to assign categories so you don’t end up with six jars of olives).

 
We’ve kept it “Italian” here. But if you have the right crowd, you might want to go “nouvelle”: bacon, blistered shishito chiles, chicken, chicken livers, corn, goat cheese, jalapeño, raw red onion, sugar snap peas, etc.
 
 
MORE FOR YOUR PARTY

Here are tips from Barilla for giving your spaghettata a special Italian flare:

 
 
RECIPES

Barilla has a large selection of pasta recipes on its website. We’ve picked these three easy recipes for your spaghettata:

 
 
> The difference between Parmesan and Parmigiano Reggiano.
 
 
> The different Italian grating cheeses.
 
 
 
 
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[1] Angel hair spaghetti with tomatoes and fresh basil: ready in minutes (photos #1 and #2 © Barilla).

[2] Spaghetti is a popular shape, but tube pasta like penne or rotini may be less “drippy.”

[3] Canned tomatoes are a base for a sauce, or just use them as is (photo © Greatest Tomatoes From Europe).

[4] Keep red chile flakes on hand to spice things up (photo © Silk Road Spices).

[5] There’s nothing better than real Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (photo © Parmigiano Reggiano | Facebook).

[6] We like to keep a peppermill on the buffet table, along with a sea salt grinder (photo © Oxo).

Have a roast beef on rye, wrap style.
Photo by River Soma | THE NIBBLE.

While flatbreads have been used to wrap food since the invention of bread, the American wrap sandwich was created in the 1980s at a Southern California restaurant chain called I Love Juicy.

Originally, tortillas—plentiful in Southern California—were used. In the 1990s, as wrap sandwiches became popular across America, manufacturers produced a moister, more flexible version of the tortilla, called a wrap. (See the four key differences between wraps and tortillas.)

While flavored wraps are ubiquitous (chipotle, garlic, honey wheat, pesto, spinach, sundried tomato, etc.), Tumaro’s Gourmet Tortillas takes them to a new level. Their New York Deli Style Wrap line makes wraps taste like deli breads. Our deli favorites, Rye and Pumpernickel, join other tasty flavors that include Cracked Pepper, Everything and Sourdough.

At just 80 calories per wrap (100 for Cracked Pepper), the calorie savings over two slices of bread is significant. Now, our Reuben sandwich on pumpernickel and roast beef on rye are all wrapped up.

Our first encounter with the company was via their Veggie Wedgies: apple, broccoli, carrot and cauliflower sliced to look like French fries. You bake them in the oven. Each serving provides more than half of a child’s Daily Recommended Value of fruits or vegetables.

The company’s Puffets are kid-style souffles in banana, black bean, carrot and other favorite flavors.

And now, the specialists in getting kids to eat their fruits and veggies have launched Peas of Pie, a pizza pie with veggies hidden in the crust.

They really are hidden. We saw an occasional wee speck of broccoli and carrot in the crust, but nothing kids would notice. The crust, a bready style, will fool every one of them.

And, those hidden veggies, plus the tomato sauce, count for 1-1/2 servings of veggies.

The pizzas are available in cheese and pepperoni.

Learn more on the company website.
  

Mix different juices to create your perfect
blend. Photo by Jaclyn Nussbaum | THE
NIBBLE.

Anyone with an electric juicer has experienced combining different fruits and vegetables into a glass of juice.

We don’t have a juicer, but we recently discovered juice mixology when we received a shipment of Natalie’s Orchid Island Juice Company—wonderful, pulpy juices that taste fresh-squeezed.

 
If you find yourself with a juice that’s too sweet or too tart, try juice mixing.

And the process of trying different proportions in your mix is fun.

Natalie’s Orchid Island Juice Company is a fifth-generation, family-owned Florida enterprise. The company produces all-natural, fresh pasteurized and fresh frozen juice* products to acclaim, both at home and abroad.

First, the finest fruits from Florida groves are hand-selected. But that’s not all it takes to make great juice. The company’s “secret” is in the squeezing: The fruit is gently squeezed so that there is no bitter taste from the peel oils. It takes more time, but you can taste the difference.

The company calls its products “gourmet pasteurized” juice. We agree.

*The bottled juices, in the refrigerator case, are pasteurized to ensure a shelf life of up to 26 days. Frozen juices don’t need to be pasteurized.

Just substitute low-cal, crunchy lettuce for tortilla wraps, sandwich bread, pita and even rice.

For example, Asian dishes that typically pair with rice can be eaten in lettuce wraps instead of with rice. We were first served romaine leaves for this purpose at a Vietnamese restaurant in Paris, many years ago. Today, we regularly go out for Korean barbecue, where meat, pickles, garnishes and condiments are rolled into a romaine leaf and eaten. It’s so delicious, it’s hard to believe it’s so low in calories.

Lettuce wraps are also a sneaky-fun way to get the family to eat more low-calorie lettuce. A .17 ounce/5 gram lettuce leaf has 1 calorie; two pieces of extra-thin-sliced bread have 90 calories.

What Types Of Lettuce Should You Use?

Just about anything works: leaves of Boston lettuce, iceberg lettuce, red leaf lettuce, romaine, napa cabbage, Chinese cabbage (bok choy) and radicchio. Pick the largest head with pliable leaves (you can blanch cabbage leaves to make rolling easier).

Save calories with lettuce wraps instead
of bread. Photo by W.S. Mahar | IST.

Wash and dry the leaves well in advance of serving. They will stay crisp in a plastic bag in the refrigerator.

What Should You Put In Your Lettuce Wraps?

 
Wrap Sandwich Recipes

The easiest way to serve wraps to anyone old enough to fix a sandwich is to keep the filling and the lettuce wraps separate and let people roll their own.

 
SANDWICH TYPES

How many types of sandwiches can you name? See our Sandwich Glossary.

There are more sandwich recipes in our Gourmet Bread Section.