Noodles Romanoff is the taste of comfort you thought couldn’t be resurrected. Whether you’ve made or eaten this recipe or not, this baked dish is the taste of eating in a grandmother’s wallpapered chachki-filled kitchen. It’s a retro dish that hasn’t aged and is the perfect comforting carby wonder to have baking away in your oven. 

While all food history has contesting variations, the lore goes that this creamy carby baked noodle dish was a popular menu item during the golden age of a Hollywood restaurant called Romanoff’s. In the age of big movie companies and even bigger stars, Romanoff’s was the place to spot famous A-list celebrities enjoying a glamorous life people craved to see in the tabloids. From the mid-30s until the early 60s, Romanoff’s was the place to drink and dine. While it had its fair share of classic steak and potatoes items, it was also known for its fried blooming onion appetizer and a strawberry and brandy dessert called Strawberry Romanoff. Noodles Romanoff was a dish that could be eaten as a side or as a main dish. Its rich and creamy sauce coated the buttery noodles that were coated with a gooey and crispy cheese topping. The owner of the restaurant, Micheal Roamnoff, said it was a spin on a dish his Eastern European mother and grandmother used to make. 

In the 1960s and 1970s, Betty Crocker capitalized on Hollywood fame, making box mixes of noodles, hearkening back to the older days of silver screen glitz and glam. 

Here, this starts with simple fettuccine or spaghetti. While a lot of recipes call for egg noodles, the pasta variation doesn’t get mushy or soft after baking and maintains a nice al dente bite.

After the pasta is cooked, drained, and tossed back into the same pot, the recipe really gets started! Cream cheese and butter are stirred into the pot until melted, and then sour cream gets folded in. A bit of salt, pepper, and garlic powder are mild but impactful, giving the noodles the right amount of flavor. 

Traditionally, Noodles Romanoff calls for Parmesan cheese, but you can cut half of the Parmesan with white cheddar or even a bit of mozzarella. Whichever cheese you choose, half of the cheese gets mixed into the pot while the other half gets sprinkled on top. 

Bake Noodles Romanoff until it is golden on the top and bubbling around the sides. 

Served fresh from the oven, this Noodles Romanoff is here to put comfort back into comfort food. 

The cream cheese, butter, sour cream, and cheese coat the noodles with a satisfying richness. 

Nutmeg adds just the right amount of earthiness to the creamy cheeses, cutting through the richness and balancing out the decadence of the dish. 

Served with a side salad, it’s the perfect main dish, or it can play as a side dish to a hearty cut of beef, braised pork, or roasted chicken. 

It tastes like the past without feeling outdated. Noodles Romanoff has this timeless comforting, decadent quality that sits perfectly alongside American classics like macaroni and cheese. It needs little explanation and simply requires you to sit down and dig in!