Spaghetti night is a beloved tradition in many homes, but sometimes the sides can feel repetitive. While spaghetti itself is a satisfying main course, the right side dishes can elevate your meal, adding flavor, nutrients, and excitement. Whether you’re making classic spaghetti with marinara, a hearty bolognese, or even a lighter spaghetti squash version, finding the perfect accompaniment is key to a balanced and delicious dinner.
This guide is packed with over 50 fantastic side dish and salad ideas to serve with spaghetti. From simple vegetable preparations to vibrant salads, you’ll discover new ways to enjoy your favorite vegetables and perhaps find some new salad recipes to incorporate into your regular meal plan. Get ready to revitalize your Spaghetti Night!
Delicious Side Dishes for Spaghetti
Vegetables are an ideal choice when considering What To Serve With Spaghetti. They are not only healthy and nutrient-rich but also versatile, budget-friendly, and easy to prepare. This collection of vegetable side dishes avoids blandness and mushiness, offering a range of cooking methods and flavor profiles to convert even vegetable skeptics. Explore roasted, air-fried, and sautéed vegetable recipes that will perfectly complement your spaghetti.
Roasted Vegetable Sides
Roasting vegetables brings out their natural sweetness and creates a satisfyingly caramelized exterior. These roasted vegetable sides are simple to prepare and deliver maximum flavor.
Easy Smoky Roasted Cauliflower
Smoky roasted cauliflower plated and ready to serve.
This Easy Smoky Roasted Cauliflower recipe from Hassle Free Vegan is incredibly versatile and flavorful. A simple combination of olive oil and smoky spices transforms cauliflower into a tender and delicious side dish with a delightful smoky depth that pairs wonderfully with the richness of spaghetti.
Best Roasted Asparagus
Aubrey’s Kitchen offers a recipe for the Best Roasted Asparagus that is both quick and foolproof. This method ensures tender yet slightly crisp asparagus every time, highlighting the vegetable’s delicate flavor which is enhanced by simple seasoning, making it a sophisticated yet easy side for spaghetti.
30-Minute Roasted Asparagus and Carrots
Roasted carrots and asparagus arranged on a serving dish.
Marley’s Menu’s 30-Minute Roasted Asparagus and Carrots recipe is a fantastic time-saving option. The natural sweetness of carrots combined with the subtle earthiness of asparagus, all roasted to tender perfection, makes for a colorful and nutritious side that cooks in the same time it takes to prepare spaghetti.
Oven Roasted Vegetables
For a diverse and nutrient-packed side, try Oven Roasted Vegetables from Two Healthy Kitchens. This medley of colorful vegetables offers a variety of flavors and textures, ensuring a healthy and satisfying accompaniment to spaghetti. Roasting enhances the natural flavors and sweetness of each vegetable.
Oven Roasted Bell Peppers
A Sweet Alternative presents Oven Roasted Bell Peppers as a sweet and savory side dish that complements spaghetti beautifully. Roasting brings out the natural sweetness of bell peppers, creating a soft and flavorful side that’s both easy and quick to prepare.
Roasted Eggplant
The Forked Spoon’s Roasted Eggplant recipe delivers tender, caramelized, bite-sized pieces of eggplant that are surprisingly easy to make. This healthy and delicious side dish offers a satisfyingly meaty texture and subtly sweet flavor that works well with tomato-based spaghetti sauces.
Oven Roasted Cherry Tomatoes
Juicy oven roasted cherry tomatoes bursting with flavor.
Scarlati Family Kitchen’s Oven Roasted Cherry Tomatoes are incredibly simple yet burst with concentrated flavor. Roasting intensifies the sweetness of cherry tomatoes, creating a juicy and vibrant side dish that can be served alongside or even on top of spaghetti for an extra burst of fresh tomato flavor.
Garlicky Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Karissa’s Vegan Kitchen offers a recipe for Garlicky Roasted Brussels Sprouts that is both simple and delicious. Tossing Brussels sprouts with olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper before roasting transforms them into a crispy and flavorful side, the slight bitterness of Brussels sprouts being perfectly balanced by the garlic and roasting process, making them a robust side for spaghetti.
Pesto Vegetables
Roasted pesto vegetables with a vibrant green pesto coating.
My Pure Plants’ Pesto Vegetables recipe is a quick and flavorful way to prepare a vegetable side. Roasting a medley of fresh vegetables with pesto creates a vibrant and aromatic dish, the herbaceous pesto infusing the vegetables with rich flavor that complements the simplicity of spaghetti.
Air Fryer Vegetable Sides
Air frying offers a quicker and healthier way to achieve crispy and delicious vegetables. These air fryer vegetable sides are perfect for busy weeknights.
Air Fryer Green Beans
Home-Cooked Roots presents Air Fryer Green Beans as a favorite healthy weeknight side dish. Air frying makes green beans crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, a delightful textural contrast. Seasoned simply, they are a quick and easy vegetable side that adds a satisfying crunch to your spaghetti meal.
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Air Fryer Broccoli
Perfectly cooked air fryer broccoli florets with crispy edges.
Strength and Sunshine’s Air Fryer Broccoli recipe takes only 10 minutes to create crispy yet tender broccoli. This healthy, oil-free recipe proves that you can achieve delicious results with minimal effort. Air frying broccoli florets results in slightly charred and tender pieces, a quick and nutritious side for spaghetti.
Air Fryer Brussels Sprouts
Another great air fryer option from Home-Cooked Roots is Air Fryer Brussels Sprouts. Air frying Brussels sprouts results in a wonderfully charred exterior and tender interior in half the time of oven roasting. This quick and healthy side dish is perfect for weeknight spaghetti dinners.
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Air Fryer Zucchini
Mae’s Menu offers Air Fryer Zucchini as an easy, keto, low-carb, and vegan side dish. Air frying zucchini slices creates a crispy and delicious texture with minimal ingredients. This versatile side is light, flavorful, and a great way to add a healthy vegetable to your spaghetti dinner.
Sautéed Vegetable Sides
Sautéing vegetables is a fast and effective way to cook them, retaining their vibrant color and slightly crisp texture. These sautéed vegetable sides are quick to prepare and full of fresh flavor.
Easy Garlic Broccoli
Served from Scratch presents Easy Garlic Broccoli, a super quick 10-minute veggie side for spaghetti. This stovetop method couldn’t be easier, delivering tender-crisp broccoli florets infused with garlic flavor in minutes. It’s a simple and classic vegetable side that always pairs well with pasta.
Easy Sautéed Sugar Snap Peas with Garlic and Shallot
Eating by Elaine’s Easy Sautéed Sugar Snap Peas with Garlic and Shallot recipe elevates sugar snap peas to a new level of deliciousness. Sautéing them with garlic and shallot creates a crispy, sweet, and savory side dish that’s both healthy and flavorful, adding a touch of elegance to your spaghetti meal.
Sautéed Rapini (Broccoli Rabe with Garlic and Oil)
Sautéed rapini in a bowl, glistening with garlic and oil.
Mangia with Michele offers Sautéed Rapini (Broccoli Rabe with Garlic and Oil) as a flavorful Italian-American side. Sautéed rapini has a distinctive bitter note and robust flavor, making it a nutritional powerhouse and a more assertive vegetable side to balance the richness of spaghetti.
Pan Fried Oyster Mushrooms with Rosemary
Home Cooking Collective’s Pan Fried Oyster Mushrooms with Rosemary recipe creates a crispy, meaty, and buttery side dish that feels fancy yet is simple to prepare. The earthy mushrooms, crispy texture, and aromatic rosemary make this a sophisticated and flavorful side that elevates a simple spaghetti dinner.
Sautéed Leeks and Peas
Cinnamon and Kale presents Sautéed Leeks and Peas as a simple 3-ingredient side dish that comes together in just 15 minutes. The delicate flavor of leeks and the sweetness of peas create a light and fresh side that is both quick and elegant, perfect for a weeknight spaghetti meal.
10-Minute Sautéed Frozen Green Beans
Scrummy Lane offers 10-Minute Sautéed Frozen Green Beans, proving that you can create a delicious side even with frozen vegetables. This recipe is a lifesaver when fresh vegetables are unavailable, offering a quick and easy way to add a healthy green side to your spaghetti meal.
Bread Sides
While spaghetti is the main carbohydrate, adding a bread side can enhance the meal, especially for soaking up delicious sauces.
Vegan Garlic Bread
Close-up of vegan garlic bread slices, golden brown and garlicky.
Home-Cooked Roots’ Vegan Garlic Bread is homemade with a soft Italian loaf, garlic butter, and fresh parsley, oven-baked to crispy perfection. This garlic bread is packed with garlicky goodness and is surprisingly easy to make with just 5 ingredients and 15 minutes, the perfect comforting side to serve with spaghetti.
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Vegan Cheese Bread (Pull Apart Bread)
Vegan cheese bread, pull-apart style, stuffed with melted cheese.
This Vegan Cheese Bread (Pull Apart Bread) from Home-Cooked Roots is guaranteed to be a crowd-pleaser. Stuffed with vegan garlic butter and homemade melty vegan cheese, this pull-apart bread is fun and flavorful, working equally well as an appetizer or a side dish for spaghetti.
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Copycat Olive Garden Breadsticks
Copycat Olive Garden breadsticks, soft, pillowy, and golden brown.
The Belly Rules the Mind offers Copycat Olive Garden Breadsticks, a spot-on remake of the beloved restaurant side. These breadsticks are soft, pillowy, and easy to make, disappearing quickly once served. They are a comforting and familiar bread side that complements spaghetti perfectly.
Roman-Style Artichokes (Carciofi alla Romana)
For a more unique side, try Roman-Style Artichokes (Carciofi alla Romana) from Our Plant-Based World. When cooked properly, artichokes become incredibly special. This recipe teaches you to prepare them the Roman way, resulting in tender and flavorful artichokes that offer a sophisticated and flavorful side to spaghetti.
Marinated Olives
Hungry Healthy Happy presents Marinated Olives as a flavorful and easy side for olive lovers. These marinated olives are packed with flavor and require minimal effort, adding a briny and savory element to your spaghetti meal that can be served as a simple appetizer or side.
Refreshing Salads to Serve with Spaghetti
Salads offer a refreshing and contrasting element to rich spaghetti dishes. From leafy greens to hearty vegetable combinations, these salads add lightness, freshness, and vibrant flavors to your meal. Explore a variety of salad styles to find your perfect spaghetti side salad.
Leafy Green Salads
Leafy green salads are light, refreshing, and versatile, providing a healthy dose of vitamins and fiber.
Radicchio Mandarin Brussels Sprouts Salad
Radicchio mandarin Brussels sprouts salad, colorful and vibrant.
Garlic and Zest’s Radicchio Mandarin Brussels Sprouts Salad is an elevated and delightful salad. Radicchio is the star, complemented by a tangy citrus dressing, sweet mandarins, and crunchy pistachios. This salad is both beautiful and flavorful, making it a special side for spaghetti.
Green Goddess Chopped Salad
Spabettie’s Green Goddess Chopped Salad is fresh, herby, and packed with flavor. This salad even stays fresh for several days in the fridge, making it ideal for make-ahead meal planning. The vibrant green goddess dressing and chopped vegetables create a refreshing and flavorful salad to balance the richness of spaghetti.
Mandarin Almond Salad
Mandarin almond salad, featuring greens, mandarins, and sliced almonds.
Served from Scratch offers Mandarin Almond Salad as a fresh and easy side salad. This simple and quick salad is perfect for spaghetti night, combining crisp greens, juicy mandarin oranges, and crunchy almonds for a light and flavorful side.
Roasted Asparagus Green Salad
Roasted asparagus green salad, featuring roasted asparagus and leafy greens.
Wholesome Soulfood Kitchen’s Roasted Asparagus Green Salad combines roasted asparagus with leafy greens and a lemon olive oil dressing. The roasted asparagus adds warmth and depth of flavor to the fresh greens, creating a simple yet elegant salad that complements spaghetti beautifully.
Vegan Kale Salad For Fall
Vegan kale salad for fall, featuring kale, apples, and cranberries.
Daily Dish’s Vegan Kale Salad For Fall features crisp, seasonal ingredients and is both flavorful and bright. This kale salad with sweet apples, dried cranberries, and a tangy creamy dressing is perfect for the cooler months, adding a touch of autumnal flavors to your spaghetti dinner.
Easy Microgreen Salad With Fresh Ginger Dressing
Low-Histamine Eats presents Easy Microgreen Salad With Fresh Ginger Dressing, highlighting the delicate flavor of microgreens. This nutrient-packed salad is light and delicious, offering a sophisticated and healthy side to a satisfying main dish like spaghetti.
Fattoush Salad
Fattoush salad, a vibrant Middle Eastern salad with toasted pita bread.
Keeping the Peas offers Fattoush Salad, a traditional Middle Eastern dish with toasted pita bread, tangy sumac, and crisp vegetables. This easy and flavorful salad is healthy, quick to make, and adds a delightful textural contrast and tangy flavor to your spaghetti meal.
Farmer’s Market Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette
A Dash of Megnut’s Farmer’s Market Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette combines fresh, seasonal vegetables with a homemade mustard vinaigrette. This versatile and delicious salad allows for customization with whatever vegetables you have on hand, making it a flexible and flavorful side for spaghetti.
Best Tossed Green Salad for a Crowd
Tossed green salad for a crowd, large and family-style.
Haute and Healthy Living presents the Best Tossed Green Salad for a Crowd, perfect for family meals or gatherings. This healthy and easy salad is a classic and versatile side that complements spaghetti, especially when serving a larger group.
Five-Minute Arugula Fig Salad
Snixy Kitchen’s Five-Minute Arugula Fig Salad is a quick and flavorful salad featuring peppery arugula, sweet figs, and toasted almonds. This salad offers a delightful balance of flavors and textures, adding a touch of sweetness and sophistication to your spaghetti dinner.
Spring Mix Salad Recipe
Flavor the Moments offers a simple and delicious Spring Mix Salad Recipe. Featuring crisp lettuce, carrot, radish, avocado, and sunflower seeds, this salad is easy to customize with your favorite dressing, making it a quick and healthy side for spaghetti.
Watercress Salad
Hungry Healthy Happy’s Watercress Salad showcases watercress, a strongly flavored and highly nutritious green. This simple salad makes peppery watercress more palatable and creates a lovely, healthy side dish that offers a unique flavor profile to accompany spaghetti.
Easy Green Salad Recipe with Capers
Debra Klein presents an Easy Green Salad Recipe with Capers that is both simple and full of flavor. Featuring peppery radishes, fresh greens, cucumbers, and briny capers, this side salad is refreshing and flavorful, the capers adding a unique salty and briny element to complement spaghetti.
Vegetable and Fruit Salads
These salads go beyond leafy greens, incorporating a variety of vegetables and fruits for more substantial and flavorful side dishes.
Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Tahini Dressing
Six Hungry Feet’s Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Tahini Dressing is a healthy and delicious side salad for spaghetti night. Roasted cauliflower forms the base of this salad, enhanced by a flavorful tahini dressing, creating a hearty and boldly flavored side that’s both satisfying and nutritious.
Raw Carrot Salad with Honey Lime Vinaigrette
Ugly Duckling Bakery offers Raw Carrot Salad with Honey Lime Vinaigrette, a light and refreshing salad featuring thinly sliced carrots and a tangy-sweet dressing. This salad is crisp, vibrant, and offers a refreshing contrast to the richness of spaghetti.
White Bean Antipasto Salad
Spabetti presents White Bean Antipasto Salad, a tasty and easy salad with bold, bright, and briny flavors. This salad is quick to make and packed with Mediterranean-inspired ingredients, offering a hearty and flavorful side that complements spaghetti.
Refreshing Chickpea Salad with Lemon
Refreshing chickpea salad with lemon, featuring chickpeas, cucumbers, and tomatoes.
Naturallie Plant-Based offers a Refreshing Chickpea Salad with Lemon that takes only 5 minutes to prepare. This Mediterranean cucumber tomato salad is light, healthy, and packed with plant-based protein from chickpeas, making it a nutritious and refreshing side for spaghetti.
Mediterranean Cauliflower Salad
Veggies Save the Day presents Mediterranean Cauliflower Salad, a zesty and crunchy salad combining raw cauliflower, fresh herbs, and a flavorful dressing. This easy and healthy side dish is packed with fresh flavors and textures, adding a vibrant and refreshing element to your spaghetti meal.
Simple Kohlrabi Salad with Vinaigrette Recipe
Masala Herb offers a Simple Kohlrabi Salad with Vinaigrette Recipe, highlighting kohlrabi, an underrated vegetable. This easy and flavorful salad requires only 7 ingredients and offers a unique crisp texture and mild flavor, making it an interesting and refreshing side for spaghetti.
Orange and Fennel Salad Recipe
Orange and fennel salad, vibrant and citrusy.
A Tasty Kitchen’s Orange and Fennel Salad Recipe combines the anise flavor of fennel with the sweet citrus of orange. This vibrant salad is a perfect complement to any main dish, offering a refreshing and bright flavor profile that cuts through the richness of spaghetti.
Strawberry Apple Cider Salad
Strawberry apple cider salad, featuring strawberries, apples, and pecans.
Joyful Balance presents Strawberry Apple Cider Salad, a fun, tangy, sweet, and fresh salad perfect for transitional seasons. Featuring strawberries, apples, feta, candied pecans, and a sweet dressing, this salad offers a delightful mix of flavors and textures, adding a touch of sweetness and autumnal notes to your spaghetti meal.
Summer Strawberry Salad with Cucumber & Arugula
Aleka’s Get-Together offers Summer Strawberry Salad with Cucumber & Arugula, made with bright and fresh ingredients. This tangy summer salad is a lovely side for spaghetti, combining the sweetness of strawberries, the coolness of cucumber, and the peppery bite of arugula for a refreshing and flavorful side.
Bean and Lentil Salads
For a more substantial salad side dish, consider bean and lentil salads, which are packed with protein and fiber.
Lentil Salad
Lentil salad, hearty and protein-packed with lentils and vegetables.
J Cooking Odyssey’s Lentil Salad is simple, flavorful, and packed with protein. This green lentil and veggie salad is tossed in a lemon and garlic dressing, creating a hearty and nutritious side dish. The lentils add substance, making it a more filling salad option to serve with spaghetti.
Chick-Fil-A Kale Crunch Salad (Copycat Recipe)
The Food Hussy presents a Chick-fil-A Kale Crunch Salad (Copycat Recipe) for fans of the popular salad. This copycat recipe is spot-on, full of fresh ingredients, and features an apple dijon vinaigrette. It offers a satisfying crunch and flavorful dressing, making it a more substantial and flavorful salad side for spaghetti.
Complete Your Spaghetti Night
With over 50 side dish and salad ideas, you’re now equipped to make every spaghetti night exciting and delicious. From roasted and air-fried vegetables to refreshing and hearty salads, there’s a perfect side dish for every taste and preference. Don’t hesitate to explore these recipes and find your new favorite pairings to elevate your spaghetti dinners. Enjoy!
