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Friends, Romans, pasta-lovers, lend me your tastebuds. I come to tell you of a (very worthwhile!) pasta dish that's been taking over social media feeds everywhere for reasons that...no one can really figure out! And that's OK. I'm talking about Assassin's Spaghetti (or spaghetti all'assassina in Italian), and though it's been around for over 50 years, it's having a biiiiig moment in 2024.
I've known about Assassin's Spaghetti for a while now. Basically, it's a one-pot pasta dish that existed well before "one-pot dishes" were a viral recipe trend; you make it by cooking spaghetti risotto-style, adding a tomatoey broth to uncooked pasta in a skillet a little bit at a time, which produces a super concentrated tomato sauce. Think: marinara sauce, but a LOT punchier and far more interesting in both flavor and texture, IMO.
Quick but interesting history lesson, then I promise to move right along: Like many older recipes, Assassin's Spaghetti's origins aren't 100% set in stone. Most people agree that the dish itself traces back to the '60s in Bari, a major coastal city in the Italian region of Puglia. As evidenced by the photo below, Bari is, clearly, to die for!
Geography aside, the rest of the dish's origin story isn't 100% agreed upon. It's believed that a local chef served customers a dish of very spicy spaghetti that they claimed was "trying to kill them," and thus spaghetti all'assassina (aka "killer spaghetti") was born. Another theory is that a chef got so distracted that he unintentionally burnt, or "killed," a pasta dish, but the customer loved it anyway, so the recipe stuck around. In a TikTok that I swear I saw but can no longer find, one creator claimed that said chef was actually distracted by a "beautiful woman outside his restaurant." Oh, men. So silly!
Most new mainstream TikTok food trends feel like they blow up all at once, but this one took things to the next level. I genuinely think most TikTok chefs (and even digital media outlets, clearly 👋) took this recipe and ran with it. I have seen hundreds of recreations of Assassin's Spaghetti in the past two weeks — many with millions of views — and I cannot escape it.
After perusing the comments on a video from creator Stephan Cusato (@notanothercookingshow), I'm not alone, either. Commenters were quick to give their two cents on how bizarre the sudden and seemingly unprompted spike in Assassin's Spaghetti content felt, with one commenter referring to the dish as an "industry plant" and yet another saying it felt like a "social experiment" to see how long it takes for a trend to start.
Unlike many other viral food trends, however, let me be the first to tell you that this dish is so very worth trying yourself. I mean, garbage recipes don't stick around for 50+ years. When I felt obligated to finally try it myself after the influx of social media content swirling around my little overused iPhone, let's just say that it exceeded every expectation I had. Calling all garlic girlies: You're gonna love this one.
(And if you can't yet trust me, believe hottest-person-alive Stanley Tucci, who tried spaghetti all'assassina in Bari while filming his show Searching For Italy.)
Here's precisely how I make my version, inspired by all the various recipes out there (with a few meaningful tweaks every now and then).
First, you'll need to gather your ingredients. Lucky for you, Assassin's Spaghetti is a minimal-ingredient masterpiece by design, so it only relies on six or so pantry staples (but tastes like something far more elaborate).
Importantly, you'll also need a 12-inch nonstick skillet. A 10-inch skillet could work, but you'll probably need to snap your spaghetti in half to cook the pasta correctly...and we all know The Pasta Queen will be mad if you do that.
Nonstick is critical here. Since the pasta will become super starchy as it softens, other skillets will likely leave you with a sticky, burned mess. I haven't tried it in a traditional skillet myself — maybe I'm wrong! — but I'd advise you to use your largest nonstick skillet.
STEP #0 — Before you start cooking, PUT ON AN APRON! I learned this recipe is Splatter City the hard way, so do me a solid and apron up before you even think about starting. Alternatively, wear a shirt you couldn't care less about.
STEP #1 — In a medium saucepan, whisk together 2 1/2 cups of tomato puree with 2 1/2 cups water, 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar, a generous pinch of salt, and a few good cracks of black pepper. Bring everything to a gentle simmer, then set it over low heat to keep warm.
STEP #2 — Meanwhile, add the 1/4 cup olive oil to your large (preferably 12-inch) nonstick skillet and place over medium heat. Then, add four cloves of garlic, minced, along with 1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes.
Once the mixture is sweating, you'll want to cook it for no more than a minute! Also, if your spice tolerance is low, reduce the amount of red pepper to 1/2 teaspoon or even 1/4 teaspoon. Conversely, if you want to blow your head off, double to 2 teaspoons. 1 teaspoon, as written, produces a dish that's spicy but manageable, so heed my warning and use caution.
STEP #3: Add your dried spaghetti to the hot oil mixture and turn the heat medium-high...
...then spoon over two ladlefuls of your bubbling tomato "sauce," which is about 1 1/2 cups if you don't own a ladle.
STEP #4 — Here's where I beg you to read the following directions carefully. The pasta-cooking element of this recipe will take around 15–17 minutes. Do your best to smoosh (a technical term) and flatten the spaghetti into the sauce as best you can with a flat utensil or fork, and for the first 3–4 minutes, continue to push the spaghetti into the saucy mixture; you can even spoon some of the sauce overtop the spaghetti.
But! DO NOT FLIP OR STIR the spaghetti (!!!) or move things around too much. Trust the process even though it feels bad and wrong. Your garlic may turn dark brown or burn over the next 15 minutes, but that's all part of the gig. It will be delicious in the end. I promise I won't lead you astray.
STEP #5 — At the end of those first 3–4 minutes, once the sauce has been absorbed and you're hearing the spaghetti sizzle in the oil, use a spatula (or even some kitchen tweezers) to flip the spaghetti over in two sections.
Hopefully, it looks something like this: just beginning to turn golden and charred in places, and the noodles will feel pretty stuck to each other. Again, this is expected. You're doing it right!
STEP #6 — Add another two ladlefuls of your tomato mixture over the flipped spaghetti, once again smooshing the spaghetti around with a flat utensil to get everything coated and covered.
And you know the drill: At the end of 3–4 minutes, or when the sauce is absorbed and the bottom of the pasta has some nice color — at this point, it should have some solid char — flip!
STEP #7 — Add another two ladlefuls of sauce over the spaghetti. For your third round of saucing, you'll want to start breaking apart the noodles if they're still pretty stuck and start swirling everything together.
As you twirl the spaghetti around, it'll start to look like this. Once mixed up, allow the spaghetti to cook until the bottom starts sizzling and browning.
STEP #8 — At this point, taste a noodle. If it's cooked and al dente, you're all done. If it's not quite there, add one last spoonful of sauce and keep it cooking until the mixture becomes sizzly. You may or may not use all the sauce.
When your pasta is al dente and the sauce is thick and dotted with charred bits and pieces, you're all done.
Twirl into bowls, top with some grated parm, and you're ready to serve.
It's nearly impossible to describe what Assassin's Spaghetti tastes like, TBH; you just have to try it yourself. But to give you a hint, it's the better-than-marinara sauce I never knew I needed. The sauce itself has an almost meaty thickness, and for a dish with fairly minimal ingredients, the resulting flavors taste incredibly alive. The sweetness of the condensed tomato sauce perfectly balances out the touch of bitterness from the very-cooked garlic and that signature slap of heat you get at the end of each bite.
If you try out Assassin's Spaghetti for yourself, let me know what you thought of it in the comments below or by shooting me a message over on Instagram. If you have questions or run into issues, you can send those my way, too!
Happy pasta-ing, and if you remember one thing from this post, it's that sometimes the things in life that feel extremely wrong end up being delicious bowls of sweet and spicy spaghetti goodness.