The Original Chef Boyardee Spaghetti Dinner 

As someone who was born outside of the USA, the most confusing part of American culture was founding out chef Boyardee was a real person while Denny from Denny's wasn't

Boiardi’s story during the depression and war was so wholesome. The man really believed in his food, so much that he started growing his own ingredients in the factory and encouraging farmers to grow more tomatoes for him. He’s such a cool guy.

As one of the grand children of Chef Hector, I heard so many stories growing up. My father was the only child of Hector and Helen; so the stories I heard I tended to believe more than the stories from other sources. It’s always fun reading about my family.

I grew up in the town with the original Chef Boyardee factory. He opened it in the middle of Central Pennsylvania so he could have access to fresh tomatoes. I used to see his nephew and his nephew's wife at my work at the grocery store.

I am 65 years old, when I was young my father would make a Chef Boyardee pizza for dinner on a Saturday night back in the early 1960's. It gave my mom a break from cooking, and I learned how to make pizza with my Dad. I remember the one box kit and can of dried parma' cheese. You'd mixed the dough and let it rise. Spread the dough by hand on a cookie sheet until you got a nice thin crust, 14" pie and it was good. Luckily I grew up in the Philadelphia area where Pizza was "King" and fast food chains had yet to proliferate. So as times got better, so did the pizza, but the most enjoyable pizza I ever had was the Chef Boyardee pizza my Dad and I made.

The man was a hero who wore an apron rather than a cape. Awesome story!

I have an original 1950 jar of Chef Boy-ar-dee meat sauce with the full list of ingredients. Its net weight is 8 ounces and the ingredients are as follows: Tomato puree Water Onions Beef Carrots Mushrooms Salt Wheat flour Cornstarch Beef fat Cracker meal Sugar Spices It came concentrated and the instructions recommend diluting it as desired by adding half a sauce bottle of water and then heating until it reaches a boil.

Sugar is added to tomato sauce not just to sweeten it but to lower the acidity of the tomato. But you can do the same thing with carrots which are much healthier and complement the sauce much better.

That was really cool he found a way to not lay any one off, you don't hear about people caring for employees like that anymore. Really awesome of him.

3:14 If a clove of garlic falls into a pot and there’s no one around to hear it…

I remember the first time my mom made a Chef Boyardee pizza and my brother and I were fascinated with the yeasty smell of the dough as it was rising on the back of the stove top; that was probably 60 years ago but I remember that first bite of pizza and nothing has ever tasted so exotic and delicious! We lived in Tennessee then and it was hard finding those food products, too.

My Dad was born in 1929 and lived in Milton Pa growing up, and he always spoke about living next door to Chef Boyardee, and going to school with his sons. Loved watching your video, and cannot wait to make this authentic spaghetti. My Dad passed away in 2018, yet spaghetti was always his favorite meal and your video made me think of him tonight!! Thank you!!

Excellent. Sweetness comes from the carrots btw. Same thing works for chili and broth for soup. The sweetness from the carrot is not overwhelming and not out of place

My Dad had a small food stand near the Simmons Mattress Company in Bayway on the Elizabeth & Linden border in New Jersey, selling sandwiches, coffee tobacco goods, bottled sodas & ice cream, et cet. During WW2, he remained open 24 hours, having helpers come in to run the place, as the mattress factory had switched over to 24 hour war production items (one of which was the bazooka). He was awarded a medal that had a large letter E on it for his work toward the war effort. He was blind, so he was more than happy to contribute in the only way he could. I still have the medal.

Little did he know that decades later, his food would be enjoyed by babies in high chairs world-wide.

A friend of mine from Italy said that they don't use as much garlic as people think. She said for example, that when they use it on bread, they take a clove of garlic and lightly rub it over the bread so that it's almost imperceptible. She is from the Piedmont region. She didn't speak about all of Italy but she indicated that it was the general practice in Italy.

I guess I’m now Officially Old. I grew up in the 1950s with that boxed spaghetti dinner with the cans of sauce and Parmesan cheese. My mother didn’t pry the lid off the can, instead she used a churchkey can opener to punch several holes in the lid so that it acted like a shaker. And yes, it was pretty darn good to eat.

I once made a Bard in D&D that specialized in culinary arts rather than music or such. His name was Bo, of the prestigious family of chefs, House Yardee. It took 11 sessions before anyone figured it out, because I was very careful never to mention his birth name, surname, or his actual profession, all in the same session. That went on for a while longer, then we got mostly wiped, and decided to just start over. So I made a more traditional Bard... Doremi, of the famous troubadour family, the Fasolatidos. That one made it to 16 sessions before anyone caught on. I wasn't even careful about it. I just did my best Italian/Spanish accent at all times, and everyone just thought it sounded legit if I said it fast enough.

I'm a life-long Clevelander and had no idea Chef Boiardi lived and worked here. How cool! And, today, Big Italy has become Little Italy. Such a cool place to see.

I remember my mom bringing home the boxed spaghetti dinners in the 60's. Other than toast, cereal, or sandwiches, it was the first meal that I learned to make by myself. I think I enjoyed just the cooked spaghetti with butter and parmesan cheese as much as I did after topping it with the meat sauce. I remember the boxed pizza kits in the stores, but my mom never bought those. Later in life I found out that the Chef's first name was Hector; I got a kick out of the fact that I shared a first name with a famous chef...

Hello! My dad jus recently died and we used to watch this show together all the time, and i wanted to thank you for making these videos and helping me stay on my feet. This video reminded me of him as he loved chef boyardee canned foods. Thank you for having this channel. Update: thank you for all the replies, literally crying because people are actually appreciating me for once! thanks.

As distant relatives of the Boiardi family, my grandparents were also from Piacenza. The sauce I grew up on and that I was taught to make, is essentially the same as Chef Hectors (Only difference being that my grandmother also added a few pats of butter to the sauté along with the olive oil and garlic always made its way into the sauce!) The sweetness comes not only from the tomato’s, and the slow cooking, but also from the carrots. Great presentation. Thank you!!!!!!

I live in Milton Pennsylvania and used to work at "chefs" as we call it here. Hector also built a mansion for his wife here in Milton and of course its called the boardi mansion. The factory still stands but it is now owned by conegra. Hector also started the 1st. Tomato festival in 1977 which we still celebrate today.

Mom used to fix the "spagetti in the box" dinner every Wednesday as she worked as a reporter for the local newspaper. Single pan dinner in the electric skillet. To brown the burger, then add the can o' sauce, then the boiled pasta. And voila! Dinner for a family.

I can't believe Max didn’t scoure the internet for a vintage can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti sauce.

I actually met the chef while on vacation in Florida in the late 1950s. He and his family were down to earth, willing to talk to a young family while sitting on the beach, even giving suggestions on sand castle building. On another note, my mother in law came from the same area in Italy as the chef. She also made pizza with just sauce and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. She always refused to add spices, meat or mozzarella. Thanks for another great episode.

It is always fun to see an old recipe come out really well. I am old enough to have seen commercials with Hector Boiardi.

Love stuff like this. I'm the granddaughter of Greek immigrants, and I've lived in Ohio all my life (I know I've seen a Chef Boiardi cookbook lying around at someone's house at some point). I think it's cool seeing ethnic cuisine and family recipes morph over the years. We definitely have at least one family tomato sauce recipe that took some investigating/translating to recreate with what's available today in terms of ingredients (and figuring out what great-grandmother meant by "a little spoon" of this and "big spoon" of that, for example haha).

I love Max being just as much of a nerd as the rest of us with his Pokémon.

I really enjoyed this episode! I live in the province of Piacenza; the story is that Chef Boiardi returned to Italy in his old age and built a summer home out in the country, across the River Trebbia from the village where I live. The style of spaghetti sauce is very typical of this area, and as everyone else has said, the carrots and the onions are what gives it that sweetness. Thank you for your always meticulous research!

It is a public fact that Beefaroni is a complete food group. Like many single-mom families, we found the spaghetti dinners (especially the meatball dinners) were a marvelous treat. Add toasted cheese bread and it was wonderful. Thank you Chef!!!!!! My mom also made Spam up like a little ham with cloves and maple syrup and served it with Kraft macaroni and cheese.

I still have cans of Chef Boy-Ar-Dee Spaghetti and meatballs for a quick meal if I have nothing else. They are very cheap and tasty too. I loved it as a kid, but then again I like Vienna Sausages and Beenie-Weanies too. Totally fascinating story.

I really appreciate the fact that Max puts as much work into the history part of the presentation as he does for the cooking and seriously researches his subjects like a professional historian.

Hi Max, as a kid in the 1970s the pizza boxes were still available and I remember them. Now, keep in mind, this was not rich people food, we were poor and it was cheap, and I'd never had any other pizza experience at that time. The crust came out thin but not light, the sauce kinda became a part of it (little moisture left), and the predominant flavor was the parm. No cheese-pull on that one, but I liked it as a kid. I had nothing better with which to compare.

Great job on the website, Max. The canned Chef Boyardee just can't compete with making it yourself. Removing the tomato seeds which add a bitterness that I never liked so I've always removed them, adding carrots, also something I've done and it really does make a difference, makes for a much better flavor. And butter on the noodles with the cheese, a long time favorite with or without the sauce.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION : My family is from Piacenza and I can assure you, this is an Americanised version of a ragù alla bolognese. Typically in Italian cuisine, you either do a mushroom sauce OR a meat sauce. In Italy, mushrooms would generally be wild porcini (Boletus edulis) and not cultivated mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus), especially in the Piacenza area where porcini abundantly grow. Also olive oil was not commonly used in the north of Italy when Ettore Boiardi left the country, they preferred lard or butter. To this day, my family prefers to use butter and flavorless vegetable oil (sunflower seed). Obviously not all pizzas (pizze) have mozzarella cheese. In northern Italy (even more in the Emilia-Romagna region), Parmigiano-Reggiano (aka Parmesan in America) is king. These folks didn't even know what mozzarella cheese was 100 years ago since it's from Southern Italy. There is no such thing as ONE SINGLE Italian cuisine, food is different in every region even every village. Some stuff has crossed all over the country (like pizza and panettone) but some haven't. NOTE : Barbetta Restaurant in NYC is specialized in Northern Italian cuisine therefore it would have made sense for Ettore to work there. But to be honest, having immigrated at such a young age I doubt he had that much knowledge about his home cuisine. Especially that home cooking was done (and still is) by the mom and possibly daughters not a 13 year old boy.

3:19 Tomatoes passed through a sieve this way is called "passata di pomodoro" in Italian; (it's essentially tomato puree that isn't concentrated; you probably could even use tomato puree with some added water). So you might be able to find a can or carton of Passata and skip the breaking your spatula step completely.

That child-like smile of delight while you were chewing was so endearing. That was a face that says, "This tastes like childhood memories."

My German grandma made the most delicious "gravy". I make her version to this day every week. There's nothing better than a bowl of pasta! This is one of of my favorite episodes! Thank you! ❤️❤❤

I’ve loved your channel for years now! I really enjoy when you make more utilitarian dinner recipes like this.

I remember those little cans of parmesan cheese in the box. So cute.

We used to have the Chef Boy-ar-dee pizza when I was a kid (late 1970's). My mother would load it with so much ground beef, mushrooms and green peppers that we had to eat it with a knife and fork. It was more of a casserole than pizza. The parmesan came in a little silver tin with a peel-back foil lid and the dough was in one of those cardboard tubes that you used a knife to "pop" open, like the old style Pillsbury cinnamon rolls.

Looks wonderful! I know the carrots well cooked into the sauce will sweeten it since it will also make some dishes too sweet if too much carrot is added. Also basil is naturally quite sweet as well. Sophia Loren published her family's paste sauce recipe and calls for only fresh tomatoes, skinned, salt ,olive oil and lots of basil, cooking it at a simmer all day long. It's amazing.

I adore these videos and am so glad I found this channel. As a person raised in a Sicilian household, I am not going to lie-I love Chef Boyardee. Learning a bit of the history made me smile.

Hector's boxed 'sketti' dinner was the very first pasta I ever tried. It was considered quite the thing back in the '60s. I was hooked on it from the get-go. I make my own sauce from scratch these days, but it's coz of Chef Boiardi that I have my life-long love of pasta.

Northern italian here, we actually use garlic in our cooking (at least, my family and my friends do) in what we call a "soffritto", which is a sort of base layer for many of our dressings. Also, chef Boyardee sauce sounds veeeeeeery similar to a "bolognese", with the addition of basil and mushroom, which are not part of the bolognese, if i'm not mistaken. Also also, love your show

Made it this week. It was delicious, and yes a few cloves of garlic did fall into the sauce. 😁

my dad and i are incredibly different people but i’m so happy you make this show that we can bond over together ❤️ excellent work max

"...it was the 50s and food was weird so they were lucky to have any pizza at all." I LOLed at this.

I had a major surgery back in November and your videos kept me company during my recovery. They were the perfect combo of being so entertaining and educational, but also short enough that my shorter attention span from the meds I was on didn't fight with me as much as with longer videos. Also, and I mean this in the best way possible, I didn't feel as guilty for falling asleep to them because I could always go back and re-watch them, where as with longer form videos I'd had alot of trouble finding where I left off. I fell asleep randomly alot post surgery, as to be expected. Thank you for these great videos and all the work and research you do to make them!

Honestly bro, u kinda motivate me to get info cooking, I love they way u display the ingredients, and display the way u cook it, I feel like I can actually cook it without looking it up, and while we wait I love the way u give a history debrief, I always enjoyed history, keep up ur amazing content bro!!❤❤

My dad was born in Milton, PA. I've actually seen Chef Boyardee at a parade about 50 years ago.

I’m from Cleveland, and my dad’s spaghetti is made almost exactly like this. He learned from his mom, I believe, who almost certainly ate at his restaurant in “Big Italy”!

There are a lot of cooking channels on youtube, but yours is my absolute favorite. I love love love love the history lesson, and for some reason especially this one as someone who grew up in the 70s eating a lot of beefaroni. I will say though my current favorite is the mini ravioli with meatballs cuz it's a little sweeter, but Beefaroni is amazing

I grew up in the 80s eating Chef Boy-ar-dee pizza kits. I love that cheap pizza. Thanks for sharing.

Chef Pikachu! That's SO cute and fitting! 🧑‍🍳🧑‍🍳🧑‍🍳🧑‍🍳🧑‍🍳

My father in law Mr. Ted who became the banquet manager of the Plaza got his start with The Boiardi brothers in 1929. He was the maitre d of the Persian Room first. He also managed Truman Capotes Black and White Ball. His uncle John Foglia was one of the investors in the Boiardi company. It was bought out by Kraft. Love your channel and never miss an episode.

I just made this recipe with a few tweaks (no fresh basil handy). It was simple and delicious! Our toddler snarfed his plateful and cried when we took his plate away. He ate a second plateful too (he NEVER asks for seconds). We will definitely be making this again. Thanks, Max! Also, we just got your signed cookbook at last, it's BEAUTIFUL!

I made this last night, the only ingredient I was missing was fresh mushrooms but I reconstituted some dried morel mushrooms in white wine instead. I used garden tomato sauce that I made last year and fresh basil as well as venison and beef blend ground meat. This is a really good, quick, easy to make meat sauce. Thanks for posting, you do a great job of bringing food history to life.

My Dad always added shredded carrots to his sauce to sweeten it up. He'd throw a fit when people said they added sugar to their sauce.

Growing up in a small Michigan farm town (sign still says "Village Limits" and there's not a single fast food restaurant) - "ethnic food" was the Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee pizza in the box, complete with the sawdust parmesan cheese in a tiny can. That and La Choy or Chun King vacuum sealed Chinese food with those crispy noodles! Great memories!

I love your videos! I can watch them over and over and every time i'm inspired to cook something, even if it's not what's covered in the video. Thanks Max.

It’s really funny I found this video. Today, my coworker was preparing dinner and he was complaining about how Chef Boyardee doesn’t taste as good when he was a kid. Now I know what to make for our upcoming employee potluck.

17:20 The recipe called for onion and carrot? That's the natural sweetness, especially if the onion and carrot caramelize together. My nonna would do the same thing with shredded carrot in her sauce.

Thank you for this wonderful throwback to my childhood. You see I DO remember those boxes of Chef Boyardee spaghetti when I was about 7 or 8 years old. It was the highlight of our week. When you opened the can of sauce and cheese you could smell the wonderful aroma of freshness and the “love” that went into making that product. We couldn’t wait to put them all together and enjoy our Chef Boyardee spaghetti dinner. And…..you are absolutely correct the recipe for things like the Beefaroni and Ravioli have changed over the years and it tastes nothing like my taste buds remember them to be like when I was young. You see the olfactory part of our brain has the capacity to retain memories far better than almost any other part of our brain. Thank you again, Dr. George Joseph Dallas, Tx

I tried this recipe! It came out drier than it should have because the 40 minutes cooking time made all the liquid evaporate. I also didn’t have fresh basil and substituted the dried stuff. Not the same. Overall it wasn’t a bullseye for me but I was glad to try it and will try it again. Thank you for sharing Max!

I tried this with a couple of small modifications, and I must say, it was quite good. I used half a pound of ground chuck (browned separately, so I could drain the fat) and a 28-ounce can of San Marzano tomatoes, hand crushed. I'll be doing this again, and probably quite often, since it's so ridiculously easy to make!

I took your advice and made it as you did use Anna's "Uncle Hectors tomato sauce". I was instantly transported back to my childhood. The flavor is phenomenal minus all that added sugar.

I made pizza from those Chef Boyardee kits (or something VERY similar) as a newlywed in the early 1980s. Since we were on an extremely tight budget at the time, we'd add diced-up slices of American cheese if we couldn't afford shredded mozzarella, and would brown/crumble/drain 1/4 lb. of hamburger for a meat topping, since we couldn't afford pepperoni slices.

I was born in 75. Last generation latchkey kid. My childhood was awesome subjectively, but objectively, very messed up. Parents divorced; an absent father, but as my brother, who was a f**** arse to me and tormented and beat me in our youth (we get along great now!!) said to me - when we were much older - that every family has a story. That resonates with me till this day to understand family dynamics, offering empathy, and the is NO leaving it to beaver!! The Boyardee family was my go-to. Alone, with only a can opener, I could only rely upon the Chef to nourish me with cold, canned pasta as, being under 9 years old, the stove was something I didn`t understand, nor touch. I STILL see every 80s Boyardee label!!

This is one of the first recipes I've seen you do, that I actively wanted to try. I enjoy hearing the history of things so much, and some of the recipes are similar to ones I've done. My current spaghetti sauce, is more of a "ground beef, tomato-based, veggie stew" that tastes good on any noodles, than an 'ordinary' meat sauce. But your response on how such a simple recipe worked got me intrigued. :) Thank you. And your website looks quite nice. I had a few years of web design training, and while the coding didn't stick, the design aspect did. Keep up the good work there, and thank sites like Squarespace that you don't have to worry as much about coding, as you use to in the 90's and 00's. lol

WV native here. Growing up you hear all of these great tales about the Greenbrier Resort. I would love to see a tasting the history from there. According to the Greenbrier historians, it was here that the Arnold Palmer first got its name from the golfer. Very fun.

Genuinely curious if Max has an entire room full of pokemon plushies, I swear I've seen dozens of different ones by this point 🤣

Max What a great story about Chef "Boyardee" ! I ate tons of his products growing up and it was great. Enjoyed your recipe for his sauce and I will make it soon. Again amazing story and keep up your great work, as you tell great stories !

I made this recipe. It was very tasty and easy. My youngest son who is a picky eater absolutely loved it. It's now a keeper. Thanks Max Miller

Now I'm going to have that old Chef Boyardee jingle stuck in my head all day. 😆

This was awesome. My dad has told me for years that Grandpa's go-to dinner for himself and his three boys whenever Grandma was out for the evening was Chef Boyardee's spaghetti dinner and iceberg wedges. That was back in the late '50s into the '60s.

Thanks Max for rediscovering Chef Bioardi's spaghetti dinner because I just bought their cookbook that was released by a niece who shared his Uncle's Hector's tomato sauce recipe in there. I had tried this recipes a few times, and it is quite surprising sauce because the sauteed onions and carrots are ingredients that makes this tomato sauce sweet. All of the ingredients are natural and there is no added sugar compared to the ones we ate in cans. I, too ate a bowl of Chef Boyardee;s meat ravioli or the Spaghetti- Os as a child. Great stories! Chef Boiardi was very successful as a chef in America. There are several recipes in the cookbook that I will try again to eat. This is a very simple tomato sauce for any pasta compared to Raio's Sunday Gravy dinner. It is a keeper in my recipe book.

I loved watching you enjoy the simple spaghetti sauce we grew up on in childhood in the 50's and 60's. I think we had that once a week, at least. And never grew tired of it (I still make it and eat it happily.)

The cross referencing of old and new family cookbooks to be true to the original recipe is super cool. Thanks for all your great work, Max!

“Do you like Chef Boyardee in a can? You do? Well you better let the poor guy out!” *cue Tim Curry in bad clown make-up ‘wa-ha!’ style laughing*

I knew within milliseconds of you taking that first bite that I NEEDED to try making this. I rarely see such a genuine reaction like this from you, so this HAS to be beyond delish.

Thanks for another great video Max. You're content is wonderful.

Chef Boyardee is a national treasure Not just his food, but the man himself

The pizza was really good - late 50's, early 60's - we had a lot !! Making the crust was actually fun - of course, we always added a little ground beef and extra cheese - Thanks for the memories !!

My partner and I are big nerds when it comes to history and we LOVE your channel! Keep up the awesome videos Matt ❤

Just discovered your channel and love it! I'm totally into foods from around the world and different times in history.

The sweetness also comes from the carrots. Its also why some brands of Jalapenos come with sliced carrots in alongside the peppers. Its to sweeten them while they're steam-sealed.

lol, when I saw your face, Max, when you took that bite. The delight on your face made me interject out loud to the screen "Tell us how you really feel, Max" knowing it was going to be a wonderfully erudite expression of happiness. Thank you for taking us with you down the path of history.

This was an amazing documentary! Thank you very much for all of your hard work in research putting this together. I'm 43 and, like you, remembered the beef-a-roni and ravioli tasting different as a child. I did in fact get to try the throwback recipes. I must say that I enjoy the modern day beef-a-roni more than the throwback. It seemed much more salty than modern-day. The sauce is also sweeter now as well. The ravioli though, I preferred the throwback. The pasta was thicker and sauce was sweeter.

When i came to America in 1980, I tried one of his spaghetti dinner kits.... I was totally hooked! So easy and also tasty. Oh, and I love the canned pasta, too... make great lunches.!

3:00 The script and narration in your videos is something I always seem to look forward, as much as the recipe in topic.

The tomato pie with just parmesan on top is a classic Neopolitan pizza, still served in New Haven, CT. at places like Frank Pepe's.

I love history and cooking!!! This was soo fascinating!!! Thank you!! 👏👏👏

The recipes are awesome, and the history is even better! Great video!

I love Anna Boiardi's cookbook. The Bolognese sauce is amazing.

I remember that Chef Boyardee pizza was still around in the 80s. My husband and I both have fond memories of that stuff from our childhood. I recall my cousin making it once and he really jazzed it up... he put hotdog slices on it in addition to the sprinkle of cheese. So fancy!! :D

Thank You thank you thank you!!! THIS is the stuff of my childhood, my mother called me her spaghetti kid cause I ALWAYS wanted THIS!🤤🤤😋😋 Also I'm almost 68 years old so I did get to enjoy it like it originally was. I'm telling my daughter that this is what I make from now on, so thank you for the recipe. I have done other recipes I've watched on your show and will say I've never been disappointed 😊

Just about every Friday night, back in the late '60s, we had Chef Boy-ar-dee pizza because my mother and father both worked and Friday nights were the "kids" night to make dinner! My sisters and I would get the crusts ready (mother always bought two mixes) and we would make the plain cheese version and the sausage version - both were fantastic!!

I remember the boxed spaghetti sauce cheese combo as well as the pizza. My dad was a real chef and refused to eat them, but my mom, who could not cook, loved the boxed spaghetti and or pizza. As a result, today, as I am 72, I still love to make spaghetti, although I do make it all from scratch, except the spaghetti noodles which I get from Italy.