You can prepare your spaghetti in various ways — like baking it in the oven or a slow cooker, making your own sauce, and even making your own noodles — but there’s one ingredient you can blindly rely on for adding a bit more flavor to your dish. It may not have been your first idea when it came to Italian dishes, but the ingredient we’re talking about is taco seasoning.

To give your pasta a much richer and zestier flavor, fry some ground beef and onions in a skillet, add the taco seasoning to the beef, and then add a can of diced tomatoes to finish off the sauce before pouring it over your noodles. However, if you prefer keeping Italian and Southwestern cuisine separate, try adding crushed chili flakes, olive oil, or red wine to your spaghetti sauce.

If you want to make a more traditional spaghetti and meatball dinner but still give it a Southwestern kick, Damaris Phillips has a similar recipe, which focuses more on taco-flavored meatballs. The recipe calls for your meatballs to be made with ingredients like cheddar cheese, crushed tortilla chips, and chili powder or taco seasoning.