High Protein Instant Pot Spaghetti

The weekend after Thanksgiving. James and I went up to Woodinville on Saturday to see the winery we booked for the wedding. I wanted to see it in a month that was not its peak. It was gray. It was beautiful. The tasting room had the big old-wood beams and the stone fireplace I had seen in photos, and the outside patio where the ceremony would be was bare of fall color but had a good structure. I stood in the middle of the patio where I will stand in ten months and try to marry James, and I looked at the hills and the sky, and I felt, for the first time since we booked it, that I had chosen well. James squeezed my hand. He said, "This is it." I said, "This is it."

We had tea at a little café afterward and talked about the guest list. We are keeping it to fifty. David's side: David, Karen, Kevin, Lisa, a few of Karen's close friends, David's brother and his wife from Spokane, my two closest friends from UW. James's side: Ming, Wei, his sister Emily and her husband, a few cousins from San Jose, a few friends from his MBA program, his college roommate. We have half a seat we are leaving empty for Jisoo, symbolically. She will be on the live stream. Hye-jin will translate for any speeches. Jihoon is still trying to come. Eunji is still deciding.

Eunji wrote me directly for the first time this week. Not through the agency. Through email, in cautious English she was clearly working hard on. She said: "Stephanie. Hello. I am Eunji. I am your sister. I want to write to you. I am slow with English. Please be patient." I wrote back: "Eunji. I am your sister. I am also slow with Korean. We will both be patient." She wrote back a day later: "That is good." She has started writing me every Tuesday. Her letters are short and getting longer. She asked about Seattle. She asked about Kevin. She asked what I cooked. I told her. She said her favorite food was jjampong, Korean-Chinese spicy seafood noodles. I told her I would learn it. I am going to learn it this winter.

Work: back on Monday. Meetings. Code reviews. The intent model project is on track for Q1 launch. I had a one-on-one with Priya Wednesday and we mapped out my Q1 scope. I said the right things. I nodded at the right times. I left her office with the faint unshakeable feeling that I was performing competence in a role I did not love. I sent Dr. Yoon an email after the meeting asking her opinion on career transitions. She said, "Bring it up Monday. We'll talk."

Karen's Thanksgiving high lasted three days. Then the lows came. She called me Monday crying because she had tried to pack away the Thanksgiving china and her hands had dropped a piece and she had sat on the floor of the dining room crying. David had rescued the piece (chipped, not shattered), helped her up, put her on the couch with tea, and then called me. I called her. She said, "I'm just having a day, honey. Don't come out." I said, "I was coming out anyway this weekend." She said, "Not just to check on me." I said, "Mom, I'm coming out to love you. Don't make this about your pride." She laughed through the tears and said, "Fine. Come out." I came out Saturday. I made her tteokguk, the Korean rice cake soup. She ate the whole bowl.

The recipe this week is tteokguk — sliced rice cakes in beef broth, with egg, seaweed, and green onion. It is the soup Koreans eat on New Year's Day — but also, apparently, for whatever day needs a soft, comforting, chewy soup. The rice cakes are oval and white. They suggest beginnings. I made it in late November because November needed a beginning. My kitchen is increasingly full of dishes I did not grow up with that are somehow exactly right for the moment I need them. That is, at thirty, the shape of my education.

The week after Woodinville, after Karen’s tears on the dining room floor and the chipped china and the drive back down from the hills with James’s hand in mine, I needed something that did not ask much of me. The tteokguk I made for Karen was for her — tender and symbolic and full of beginning. What I made for myself that Monday night was this: spaghetti in the Instant Pot, protein-forward and straightforward, the kind of meal that lets the kitchen feel like a place of small, manageable control when everything else is large and still settling. Some weeks the recipe is a lesson. Some weeks it is just the pot you come home to.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 lb lean ground beef (93% lean) or ground turkey
1 lb dry spaghetti, broken in half
1 jar (24 oz) marinara sauce
2 cups beef broth or chicken broth
1 cup water
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
1 medium yellow onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, for serving

Instructions

Sauté the aromatics. Set the Instant Pot to Sauté mode. Add olive oil and heat until shimmering. Add diced onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3–4 minutes until softened. Add garlic and cook 30 seconds more until fragrant.
Brown the meat. Add the ground beef or turkey to the pot. Break it apart with a wooden spoon and cook until no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Drain excess fat if needed. Season with salt, black pepper, and Italian seasoning.
Layer the pasta. Cancel Sauté mode. Add the broth and water to the pot, then nestle the broken spaghetti in as flat and even a layer as possible — this helps it cook evenly and prevents clumping. Do not stir.
Add the sauce. Pour the marinara sauce and diced tomatoes over the top of the pasta. Do not stir. Add red pepper flakes if using. Gently press any exposed pasta down into the liquid.
Pressure cook. Secure the lid and set the valve to Sealing. Cook on High Pressure for 8 minutes. When the cycle ends, do a quick release by carefully turning the valve to Venting.
Finish and serve. Open the lid and stir everything together well. The sauce will thicken as it sits. Let stand for 3–5 minutes. Taste and adjust salt. Serve in bowls topped with Parmesan cheese.

Nutrition (per serving)

High Protein Instant Pot Spaghetti — The Pot That Holds You When You Need It