I Made The Viral TikTok Honeycomb Pasta And Here Are My Thoughts

When you have teenagers (who live in TikTok land) and there is a viral product that everyone (but them) have, that’s all you hear about. My three teenagers live and die for TikTok. If I ask them a question, there are times I’m pretty sure they are legit quoting someone from that damn app.

Well, the same goes for recipes. We’ve made many of them and I found myself scanning TikTok the other day for dinner recipes because I know my kids will eat it if I say, “I found the recipe on TikTok!”

When my daughter showed me the Honeycomb pasta recipe, I knew it would be a winner. One, it looks freaking cool since it’s basically a pasta cake. And two, what could go wrong with cheese, pasta, sauce, and meat?

I also had the Springform pan required to form the pasta cake so I added what I didn’t already have to my grocery list and was relieved our Friday night dinner plans were sealed and they wouldn’t be talking me into ordering a pizza.

To make this dish, you are basically layering sauce, meat, cheese and pasta. However, there’s a twist to make it fancy. After you coat the bottom of your springform pan with sauce and meat, you take your boiled rigatoni and stand it up going all the way around your pan, and fill with mozzarella. I saw some people do this with fresh mozzarella (which is what I did), and some used cheese sticks (which is what I would have done if I could keep those in the house).

When I showed the video to my son, he proclaimed it would be too much cheese and it was then I questioned if he was actually my son. There’s no such thing as too much cheese, my dear.

After you stuff your rigatoni, you layer with more sauce, meat, and cheese, then bake until nice and bubbly.

The reviews on the street about this dish are mixed. However, if you are thinking of making this recipe here are my thoughts for you to consider before you do:

Pros:

Honeycomb pasta is pretty inexpensive to make and you may already have some of the ingredients at home.

It looks cool if you can get it to come out right.

It tastes really good and my whole family liked it.

Cons:

My back still hurts from all the work this pasta cake took. Standing rigatoni up trying to get it all erect and shit looks easy on a TikTok video but I lost my patience very quickly. I felt like I was playing dominos. A few times one of them fell over and they all fell over. Some of the pieces of pasta were flat and I had to force them open to stuff the cheese inside.

As much as I like cheese, I never want to spend my time stuffing little pastas again. I said out loud a few times while I was making it, “I don’t want to do this,” and “I need a massage,” but no one heard me because I am the mother of the house, and that’s my life now.

I was really excited to show off all my hard work and I let my pasta set up for a bit per the instructions, but after taking the springform pan off, it began to fall apart.

After the first serving, it all came tumbling down and my son asked me why I didn’t just stir it all up together and put it in a normal pan, because he was going to mash it down anyway.

My back and shoulders were throbbing so bad from hunching over trying to inject cheese into pasta that I had trouble getting comfortable while trying to fall asleep that night. I literally had to go get my massager to work out the knots, except the last person who used it didn’t recharge it and I laid in my bed cursing those stupid rigatonis.

Did it taste wonderful? Yes. It’s definitely comfort food, especially paired with garlic bread, and we had leftovers the following night and it was just as good.

But is honeycomb pasta worth all the hype? I say no, unless it comes out right and you get lots of praise and attention for constructing a beautiful Italian dish — something I didn’t get from my three teenagers.

Honestly, after we were done eating, I threw the leftovers into a Tupperware container and all my hard work was quickly morphed into a regular ol’ baked ziti.

I wasted some of my Friday night trying to make pasta stand at attention, and in the process I learned something about myself: I like cheese but not enough to stuff it in little tubes.

If you want the flavor of honeycomb pasta, I implore you, just make a baked ziti and layer in some extra mozzarella.

If you want to show off, go ahead and make this — but keep in mind it might all come crashing down after you’ve pinched a nerve in your left shoulder building this damn pasta pie, and you may get comments like, “Why didn’t you just put it in a regular pan?” Or “What’s taking you so long to make dinner?” Or, “Why isn’t the pasta staying in a tight circle?” Or, “What’s the point of this and who are you trying to impress?”

If you are a risk taker, go ahead and try it. Just keep some Advil close by and make sure your massager is charged and ready to go. You’re going to need it.