I grew up with Filipino spaghetti and I love it so much that as an adult, I still prefer this sweet version over the traditional tangy and tomato version of spaghetti. This recipe includes a unique addition of fish sauce that adds ample umami flavor to this dish!
Background
While it might sound blasphemous to pasta connoisseurs to add sugar and ketchup to a pasta sauce, it’s a beloved dish in the Philippines. Thanks to American colonization in the Philippines in the late 1800s, Filipinos were introduced to a myriad of American products, like hot dogs and ketchup. There’s a rumor that Filipino spaghetti was created due to the influence of General Douglas MacArthur during World War II. In Japan, MacArthur ate Spaghetti Neapolitan, which has ketchup as an ingredient. When MacArthur moved to the Philippines, his staff adjusted the recipe to fit the Filipino flavor profile and included banana ketchup among other ingredients.
Filipino spaghetti at Jollibee
These days, you can find Filipino spaghetti at fast-food restaurants around the world like Jollibee and order their famous Jolly Spaghetti. Jolly spaghetti is great for when you’re busy and need a quick meal. It tastes super sweet and has a slight tang. If you don’t have a local Filipino restaurant, this easy to follow recipe will also give you a sweet and tangy spaghetti at home, but with a heartier sauce filled with umami flavors due to the special ingredient.
Filipino spaghetti sauce
Banana ketchup
Due to limited resources to make tomato ketchup in the Philippines, banana ketchup (or bananan sauce) was created by food scientist and chemist, Maria Orosa, who used an abundant fruit in the Philippines, bananas, as a base to make banana ketchup and fulfill Filipinos’ love for ketchup. From there, banana ketchup became a very important ingredient in many Filipino foods, like pork bbq skewers, was used as a dipping sauce for dishes like lumpia Shanghai, or a necessary part of breakfast with sinangag.
Hot dogs & cheese
Like spaghetti and spam, Filipinos were introduced to a lot of processed foods during American colonization. Popularity for Velveeta cheese and hot dogs were so high that they were both added to different dishes like puto or hot dog marshmallow skewers for birthdays, and of course, Filipino spaghetti. You can’t have Filipino spaghetti without toppings like sliced hot dogs and cheese. Using hot dogs While you can use hot dogs from your local grocery store and slice them into small pieces, I like to go the traditional route and get the Pamana brand hot dogs that are bright red. For cheese, traditionally you should use a quick melting cheese like Velveeta brand. However, I prefer sharp cheddar and this works well too. The sharp cheddar adds a little more tangy and fatty flavor into this dish.
Fish sauce
I added fish sauce into this recipe as a salty component. While it’s not a traditional ingredient in Filipino spaghetti, I also have an aunt who adds fish sauce to elevate the flavor in the sauce. Even though you won’t typically find it in this specific dish, fish sauce (or patis) is a very important ingredient in other Filipino dishes and adding it into the spaghetti sauce gives it an umami characteristic.
Cooking tips
Who invented Filipino spaghetti?
It’s rumored that General Douglas MacArthur helped influence Filipino spaghetti due to his introduction to Japanese spaghetti naporitan–a dish that includes ketchup in its ingredients. Later on when MacArthur traveled to the Philippines, the dish changed to adjust with Filipino ingredients like banana ketchup.
