Foodie Friday - Cheese And Marmite Pasta

The advertising tag line is so true with Marmite, you either love it or you hate it, there is simply no in between. This salty, savoury yeast extract certainly divides opinion but I'm firmly in the love camp. It's suitable for vegetarians and gives food that amazing savoury flavour, that often seems to be lacking. My favourite way to eat Marmite is on a slice of hot buttered toast, mmmmm. but over the last year or so I've started to experiment with is a bit, adding it to soups and stews to give them a bit of extra flavour. I'm a huge fan of UKTV Food and Food Network and I love watching old cookery shows, whilst watching a Nigella show recently I was reminded of something I used to eat an awful lot, that I hadn't made for ages, this is my version of her Marmite Spaghetti.

Cheese And Marmite Pasta

300g Pasta

1oz Butter 

2 tsps Marmite

2oz Grated Cheddar

1. Cook your pasta in a large pan of salted water - I'm using gluten free spirals here but anything will do, the original recipe calls for spaghetti but I'm much more of a fan of pasta shapes :) why? well they're less messy to eat ;)

2. In the meantime measure out your cheese and your butter 

3. When your pasta is cooked drain it well

4. Turn off the heat and put the empty pan back on the ring, put your butter in the pan and the heat of the pan should start to melt it.

Then add your Marmite, I'm using the squeezy version as it's much easier to deal with, Marmite is notoriously sticky, so I'm just guessing the measurements to be honest, to avoid getting sticky.

Mix the butter and the Marmite together, it should just about melt, with the heat of the pan and the residual heat in the ring.

5. Add your pasta

and most of the grated cheese and mix well till all the pasta is coated in the butter / Marmite mixture 

6. Done, serve sprinkled with the remaining grated cheese :) This amount served me and Mummy Lou as a main meal x

It a bit embarrassing to call this a recipe to be honest, as it is soooo easy to make, It probably takes less than 20 minutes including the time it takes to cook the pasta. This recipe can be easily adapted to serve more or less by altering the amount of pasta, you could also add more or less Marmite depending on how strong you want the flavour to be. The amounts I used give it that intense savoury taste without leaving it too salty or too strong, the butter really does mellow it out. You could also leave out the cheese if you like - I'm a cheese fiend however so I always add some if I have it :) You could also pop it into a baking dish, sprinkle with grated cheese and pop it under the grill for an even bigger cheese hit x This is a great fail safe one pan meal for when you just can't be bothered to cook. Do you love Marmite like me? let me know in the comments x