Meghan Markle has divided fans with her controversial recipe for one-pot spaghetti which features in episode one of her Netflix series With Love, Meghan.

The episode sees the Duchess of Sussex tackling a dish called ‘skillet spaghetti’, which she tells viewers she regularly cooks for Prince Harry and their children, Archie, five, and Lilibet, three.

Traditional methods might see pasta submerged in a large pan of salted boiling water, but the Duchess simply pours ‘three cups’ of boiling water onto raw spaghetti and cooked ingredients and then puts a lid on it.

TikTok sensation and American pasta maker Danny Freeman, who has over 1.5 million followers, has now weighed in on the controversy.

Danny is popular on social media thanks to his creative takes on Italian cooking and pasta making, including ravioli in the shape of Taylor Swift and cartoon characters like Bluey.

On Monday, the social media star, who goes by the Instagram name ‘Danny Loves Pasta’, shared a clip showing him testing Meghan’s one-pot meal.  

‘This is the most controversial pasta in the world right now. I made Meghan Markle’s single skillet spaghetti and as a pasta expert, let me tell you my true feelings,’ Danny says in the video.

‘This is from her new show With Love, Meghan. She says she makes this for her kids. She puts the leftovers in their lunchboxes. She didn’t really give a precise recipe, but I wrote one up based on what she was doing and I put it in the caption.’

Danny starts the recipe by cutting cherry tomatoes and adding them to a skillet with olive oil, salt and garlic.

He says he would add an extra step in the method to help bring out the flavours of the dish.

‘Now personally, I would sauté the (garlic) first to get a little bit more flavour, but she has the dry spaghetti right on top and a bunch of lemon zest and then the stems of some Swiss chard,’ Danny adds.

He then reaches the controversial part of the recipe, however Danny hints that Meghan may have been on to something with her unique method.

‘Now this is where it gets controversial,’ Danny says. 

‘She boils water in a tea kettle, adds that to the skillet, cooks the spaghetti for a few minutes, adds kale and Swiss chard and cooks it some more and she is right.

‘When you cook pasta in just a little bit of water, you get really starchy water that can make your sauce creamy without cream.’

Continuing his assessment, Danny reveals that his children would not be as appreciative of the ingredients as Archie and Lilibet.     

‘When the pasta’s done she adds red pepper flakes, parmesan and arugula. My kids are not as healthy as hers, apparently, because they would definitely pick around all these greens. But I really like how this turned out,’ he says.

Rounding out his post, Danny gives Meghan’s controversial dish his tick of approval.  

‘It is fast and the texture of the sauce is really nice. You can also try this with broth instead of water that will add a little bit more flavour because this sauce was just a little bit bland,’ he says.

‘But I love this method, I love a one-pot meal, so Meghan, I think this recipe is a keeper.’

Danny’s video comes after fans expressed their horror over the dish Meghan whipped up with her close friend, make-up artist Daniel Martin. 

‘Netflix paid a lot of money just to let us know Meghan Markle doesn’t know how to cook pasta,’ one person wrote on X.

‘Next she’ll show us how to make frozen pizza!’ another joked.

Another lamented: ‘She overcooked the noodles. Slimy looking.’

‘Wtf is that? It looks like she made some sort of soup, cooked the vegetables to hell, tossed in some spaghetti and called it a day,’ a user commented.

‘The pasta looks fine in the end, but I think Italians screamed at their TVs when she poured water into the sauce,’ someone else observed.

Others, however, came to the Duchess’ defence.

‘It looked delicious to me,’ one person wrote.

In another moment that might annoy an entire European nation, the Duchess calls the popular Italian pasta ‘noodles’ more than once while prepping the meal.

And when Parmesan cheese is grated to finish the dish, Meghan pronounces it ‘Parmigian’, a slightly tweaked version of the Italian word, Parmigiana.