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Recipes · Spaghetti Red

Joplin Spaghetti Red

Spaghetti red has no published canonical recipe. Fred & Red’s recipe is secret and was sold with the business in 2016, and Ike’s in Tulsa has never released its own. This is the most widely circulated Joplin approximation, posted on the Acronym Soup blog in 2011 and described there as made by a loyal Fred & Red’s customer, not the restaurant’s recipe.

Not stated in the source · About 1 1/2 hours

A white bowl of spaghetti under ground-beef chili with red beans, a little shredded cheese and chopped onion, oyster crackers beside it.

Method

  1. 1

    Brown the beef in a heavy pot.

  2. 2

    Stir in the chili seasoning, garlic salt and cumin and simmer for 15 minutes. Leave the fat in the pot.

  3. 3

    Add the crushed saltines and the water, stir well and simmer for an hour. The source stresses not rushing this step.

  4. 4

    Taste and add salt if needed.

  • The crushed saltines thicken the chili in place of flour or masa.
  • Unlike Cincinnati chili, the seasoning has no cinnamon, allspice or clove.

Sources

  1. Spaghetti Red Recipe Challenge for Joplin, Acronym Soup (2011)
  2. Fred & Red’s Chili in Joplin to celebrate its centennial next month, Route 66 News (2023)