Espagueti blanco (es-pah-GET-ee BLAHN-koh) is what a lot of Mexican families put next to the turkey or the ham on Christmas Eve: spaghetti in a smooth white sauce of Mexican crema, cream cheese and butter, seasoned with chicken bouillon. No chile, no tomato, just mild and creamy. The recipe is easy. The hard part is serving it to a table of 12 without it turning into a dry, sticky block, and the fix is a generous ratio of sauce to pasta, about twice the weight of the dry spaghetti.
How it compares to Alfredo and mac and cheese
How do you make Mexican white spaghetti? Soften onion and garlic in butter without browning, then blend them with 1½ cups (360 ml) of crema, 1 cup (240 ml) of milk, 6¾ oz (190 g) of cream cheese and chicken bouillon. Warm the sauce gently without boiling, cook 14 oz (400 g) of spaghetti 1 minute short of the package time and toss them together with a little pasta water. 35 minutes for 8 servings.
If you’re coming to it cold, it sits between two things you know:
| Mexican white spaghetti | Alfredo (US style) | Mac and cheese | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sauce base | Crema, milk, cream cheese, butter | Butter, heavy cream, Parmesan | Milk, flour roux, Cheddar |
| Flavor | Mild, lightly tangy, savory from bouillon | Rich, salty, nutty from Parmesan | Sharp, cheesy |
| Texture | Loose, silky | Thick, clinging | Thick or baked and set |
| Role at the table | Side dish with roast meat | Usually a main | Side or main |
It isn’t carbonara either, which has egg yolk and cured pork and no cream. The closest comparison is Alfredo, but the crema and cream cheese make it softer and tangier, and the bouillon gives it a savory note that tastes more like home cooking than restaurant pasta.
Time is 35 minutes, 10 hands-on before the stove and 25 at it, about half of that waiting for the water to boil. It’s easy: watch the heat under the sauce and the timing of the toss.
Ingredients, and what to buy in a US or UK store
This makes 8 side servings, about 2 oz (50 g) of dry pasta per person. As a main dish, it feeds about half as many people.
| Ingredient | In the US | In the UK | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mexican crema | Latin dairy case of most supermarkets | Rare; use double cream | Heavy or double cream is less tangy and a bit richer; the sauce tastes plainer but behaves the same |
| Crema substitute | Heavy cream | Double cream or crème fraîche | Crème fraîche is closest in tang |
| Sour cream | Any store | Soured cream | Right flavor, but it can split if it boils, so keep the heat at its lowest |
| Cream cheese | 8 oz (226 g) block; use about ¾ | Standard tub | Using the whole block is fine; the sauce is a little thicker |
| Chicken bouillon powder | Spice or soup aisle | Chicken stock cube, crumbled | Same job; both are salty, so salt last |
| Spaghetti | A 1 lb box; use most of it | 500 g pack; use 400 g | None |
The ratio that matters. For every 14 oz (400 g) of spaghetti you want 2½ cups (600 ml) of crema plus milk and 6¾ oz (190 g) of cream cheese. Freshly tossed, it looks like too much sauce. Ten minutes later, on the table, it isn’t. Cream on its own makes a heavy sauce; milk thins it without losing body. The cream cheese is what keeps the sauce together as it cools a little.
Equipment. A pot of at least 5 quarts (5 liters) for the pasta, a wide 11 in (28 cm) sauté pan or shallow pot that holds all the spaghetti, a blender and tongs.
Step-by-step method
The sauce. Keep the onion over medium-low heat for 4 minutes, until translucent. If it starts to color, lower the heat: browned onion turns the sauce beige and slightly bitter. Blending it with the dairy gives a smooth white sauce and melts the cream cheese with no lumps. Back in the pan, warm it for 5 minutes over low heat. It’s ready when it steams, small bubbles show only at the edge, and it coats the back of a spoon like thin custard. That’s as hot as it should ever get.
The pasta. Use 4 quarts (4 liters) of water for 14 oz (400 g) and a tablespoon of salt. Less water and the strands stick together in the starchy water. Stir for the first minute, which is when they glue themselves together. Pull it 1 minute early: it should be tender outside with a thin white thread in the middle when you bite a strand, because it finishes in the sauce. Have the sauce hot before you drain, and don’t rinse; the surface starch helps the sauce cling. Drained spaghetti left sitting in a colander sticks within 2 or 3 minutes.
The toss. Over low heat, 1 to 2 minutes, lifting the strands with tongs. Done right, every strand is coated, a little sauce pools at the bottom of the pan, and it moves when you plate it. If it clumps, add the reserved water 2 tablespoons at a time.
Scaling it for a holiday crowd
As one side among several on a Christmas table, 2 oz (50 g) of dry pasta per person is enough. If it’s the only side with the meat, plan on 2½ to 3 oz (75 g).
| People | Spaghetti | Crema or cream | Milk | Cream cheese | Butter | Bouillon powder |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 400 g (14 oz) | 360 ml (1½ cups) | 240 ml (1 cup) | 190 g (6¾ oz) | 45 g (3 tbsp) | 1½ tsp |
| 12 | 600 g (1¼ lb) | 540 ml (2¼ cups) | 360 ml (1½ cups) | 285 g (10 oz) | 70 g (5 tbsp) | 2¼ tsp |
| 16 | 800 g (1¾ lb) | 720 ml (3 cups) | 480 ml (2 cups) | 380 g (13½ oz) | 90 g (6 tbsp) | 1 tbsp |
| 20 | 1 kg (2¼ lb) | 900 ml (3¾ cups) | 600 ml (2½ cups) | 475 g (1 lb 1 oz) | 115 g (8 tbsp) | 3¾ tsp |
Use ½ onion per 8 people. Cook the pasta in batches of 14 to 18 oz (400 to 500 g), each in 4 to 5 quarts of water, or run two pots side by side. Blend the sauce in batches that fill the jar no more than halfway. For 2 lb or more of pasta, toss it in the empty pasta pot with the hot sauce.
Make-ahead plan for Christmas Eve
Here’s what usually goes wrong: the pasta gets tossed at seven to free up the stove, and by dinner it’s stiff and stuck together. Pasta keeps absorbing sauce even with a lid on. In order of what works best:
- Sauce the day before, pasta at the last minute. The blended, warmed sauce keeps up to 2 days in a covered container in the fridge. It thickens a lot cold, so rewarm it over low heat with 2 or 3 tbsp of milk. The pasta takes about 10 minutes and can cook while the turkey or ham rests.
- Tossed up to 1 hour ahead. Leave the sauce noticeably looser, with an extra ½ cup (120 ml) of pasta water per 14 oz (400 g), and hold back ½ cup of sauce. Cover the pan off the heat, or keep it in the oven if yours holds above 140°F (60°C) on its lowest setting. Stir in the reserved hot sauce right before serving.
- Pasta cooked the day before, for 16 to 20. Cook it 2 minutes short of the package time, drain, run it under cold water to stop the cooking, toss with 1 tbsp of oil per 14 oz (400 g) so it doesn’t set into a block, and refrigerate it in covered containers. To serve, dunk it in boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds, drain and toss with the hot sauce. Slightly softer than fresh, but it frees the stove when you need it most.
Christmas Eve countdown with option 1:
- The day before. Make the sauce, warm it, and refrigerate.
- 60 minutes before dinner. Take the sauce out and chop the parsley.
- 30 minutes before. Put the water on.
- 20 minutes before. Rewarm the sauce with the milk over low heat.
- 15 minutes before. Cook, drain, toss. Serve.
On a buffet, don’t leave it out more than 2 hours. Keep a cup of hot milk or pasta water nearby to loosen it halfway through dinner.
Troubleshooting dry, gluey or split sauce
- Dry on the platter → too little sauce, pasta overcooked, or tossed too early. Add hot milk ¼ cup at a time and toss; it recovers almost completely.
- Strands stuck in a block → the pasta waited without sauce, cooked in too little water, or wasn’t stirred at the start. Toss with hot sauce and a splash of pasta water; the strands separate as they warm.
- White flecks in the sauce → cold or unblended cream cheese. Blend the sauce again for a few seconds, without the pasta.
- Greasy, split sauce → it boiled, or sour cream or light cream got too hot. Take it off the heat, add 2 tbsp of warm milk and whisk; if it won’t come back, blend it again.
- Beige or bitter → the onion or butter browned.
- Too salty → bouillon, salted butter and pasta water add up. Taste before adding the last ¼ tsp of salt.
Who it suits. No heat at all, and most kids like it. It contains wheat (gluten) and milk. Some bouillon powders contain soy or wheat, so check the label. For gluten-free, use gluten-free spaghetti and toss it right before serving, since it breaks and clumps faster than wheat pasta.
Variations worth making
- With ham. The most common home version. Brown 5 oz (150 g) of diced deli ham (UK cooked ham) in the butter for 2 to 3 minutes, set it aside, cook the onion, and add the ham with the pasta. About 30 extra calories per serving.
- Espagueti verde with poblanos. Char 4 poblano peppers, cover them for 10 minutes to steam, peel, seed and blend them with the sauce, plus a handful of cilantro if you like. Mild, with a roasted-pepper flavor. Poblanos are easy to find in US supermarkets; in the UK they’re hard to get, and roasted green bell pepper gives color but not the taste. If you like poblanos with cream, rajas con crema is the same flavor as a stew.
- With grated cheese. Stir in 1¾ oz (50 g) of Parmesan off the heat at the end. Thicker and saltier, so loosen with pasta water.
- Cream only, no cream cheese. 2 cups (480 ml) crema or cream and ½ cup (120 ml) milk. Lighter and looser, but it dries out sooner on the platter, so it isn’t the one to make ahead.
- Smoky and spicy. Blend one or two chipotles in adobo into the sauce; it turns pink and picks up heat. The same sauce idea, with chicken, is in creamy chipotle chicken.
What to serve it with
It’s the soft, mild thing on a holiday plate where everything else is roasted, tangy or spiced, and it goes on the same plate as the meat.
- The roast. A Venezuelan pernil, slow-roasted pork leg, is a great match: its juices run into the sauce on the plate. A turkey or a glazed ham works the same way.
- The rest of a Mexican Christmas Eve. Mexican Christmas bacalao with tomatoes and olives and romeritos in mole; the spaghetti softens the salt and the mole.
- Something cold and sweet. Mexican apple salad with crema, or the beet-red Mexican Christmas Eve salad.
A side serving is a little under 1 cup on the plate. With mashed potatoes or a pot of Mexican Christmas rice with pecans and raisins also on the table, you can drop to 1½ oz (40 g) of dry pasta per person.
Storing and reheating
Fridge. Refrigerate within 2 hours in a covered container; it keeps 3 to 4 days. The next day it looks firm with no visible sauce, because the pasta absorbed it.
Reheating. In a skillet over low heat with 2 tbsp of milk per cup of pasta, covered at first and then tossed with tongs, 4 to 6 minutes, until creamy again and hot all the way through (165°F / 74°C). In the microwave, covered, with the same milk at medium power in 1-minute bursts, stirring between each. Full power dries the edges and splits the sauce.
Freezer. It can be frozen for 2 to 3 months, but I don’t recommend it: the pasta comes out soft and the sauce grainy. If you know you’ll have extra, freeze the sauce on its own and cook fresh pasta.
Questions people ask
Can I make it without a blender? Yes. Chop the onion very finely, soften the cream cheese for 30 seconds in the microwave and whisk it with the crema and milk before adding it to the onion. You’ll have small bits of onion in the sauce, as many home versions do.
Can I use a different pasta shape? Yes. Elbows, penne or fusilli work with the same water and 1 minute less than the package time, and short shapes clump less while they wait.
Is it served cold, like a pasta salad? No. Cold, the butter and cream cheese firm up and the sauce turns pasty. Serve it hot or warm.
Nutrition per serving
Per serving (⅛ of the recipe, without ham or extra cheese), calculated ingredient by ingredient from the quantities above:
- Calories: 465 kcal
- Protein: 10 g
- Carbohydrates: 43 g
- Fat: 28 g, of which 17 g saturated
- Fiber: 2 g
- Sugars: 6 g
- Sodium: 305 mg
Two fifths of the calories come from the spaghetti and most of the rest from the dairy: crema, then cream cheese, then butter. The sodium figure leaves out the salt the pasta picks up from its cooking water, which adds a little.
I’m Venezuelan and live in Colombia, so this isn’t a dish from my childhood table. It earned its place because it solves a problem every Christmas cook has: something the kids will eat that sits happily beside a big roast. I make the sauce the day before and always keep half a cup of it back, poured over the platter as it goes out. Josnaisis.