Pasta & Noodles
1283 recipes found
Spring Garden Pasta Salad
A perfectly quick spring or summer dinner, this recipe draws on Meghan’s kitchen garden in Montecito, Calif., and her fondness for meals filled with vegetables. “Use a healthy dose of garlic, mint and whatever fresh green vegetables you have on hand,” she said.
Tortellini Pasta Salad
Italian sandwiches don’t hold up well, but pasta salads do, so transform your go-to deli order into a make-ahead pasta salad that’s hearty, punchy and not at all soggy. Instead of regular pasta, this recipe uses cheese-filled tortellini for soft, creamy bites. There’s plenty of salami too, of course, along with sweet and sharp roasted red peppers, balsamic vinegar, red onion and arugula. But it’s adaptable depending on your personal preferences: Add more vegetables, such as frozen corn or cauliflower, or briny olives or capers; skip the greenery, or make a grain salad by swapping the pasta for farro.
Jjajangmyeon (Black Bean Noodles)
Smothered in a supersavory gravy studded with pork belly, these chewy wheat noodles are South Korea’s cultural equivalent to delivery pizza in the United States. Traditionally a takeout food, this variant of China’s zha jiang mian was created in Incheon, South Korea, by Chinese migrant workers around the turn of the 20th century. Over the years, the dish has become sweeter and richer with pork to match Korean palates. A flavorful broth results in the most flavorful jjajang sauce, which is simmered slowly here to develop the deep comfort of onion and cabbage that scaffolds umami sweetness over the fragrant pork belly. Traditionally, powdered starch thickens the sauce, but here, grated potato achieves the same effect with less gloopiness.
Citrus-Soy Chicken Ramen
Bright and zippy, rich and savory, this streamlined take on ramen wakes your palate like a sunbeam streaming through the curtains on a lazy morning in bed. It’s superfast yet it tastes as if you've just spent hours simmering it. Simply make a quick garlicky broth enriched with soy sauce and enhanced by the bones and skin from a store-bought rotisserie chicken. Cook noodles right in the broth and then add the shredded chicken, fresh citrus juice, cilantro, sesame and a little more soy. If you’d like, serve with the juiced lime and lemon halves in the bowl to add more vibrancy to this satisfying meal.
Ash Reshteh (Greens, Beans and Noodle Soup)
Among ash, a beloved category of thick soups in Iranian cuisine, ash reshteh is the most famous. Packed with legumes, a mountain of greens and reshteh, thin, flat noodles similar to linguine, it’s a hearty dish traditionally eaten on Chaharshanbe Suri, the Festival of Fire that falls on the Wednesday before Nowruz, the Persian New Year. The soup is finished with sizzled mint, crispy onions and kashk, an Iranian dairy product akin to a funkier sour cream. Kashk has a bold, umami-rich salty-sour flavor that’s unlike anything else. It’s worth trying to buy at a Middle Eastern market, but since it can be hard to find, a mix of lemon juice and sour cream or Greek yogurt makes a great substitute.
Lemony Roasted Mushroom Pasta
A mélange of mushrooms, roasted with aromatic garlic, sweet red onions and warming woody herbs, brings elegance to this easy weeknight pasta. Roasting mushrooms is a wonderful hands-off cooking technique, giving them the time to soften and become golden around the edges while staying moist and plump. Lemon wedges are roasted, too, which unlocks their sweetness and coaxes out a deeper citrus flavor. A dash of soy sauce is just enough to intensify the umami of the dish. While using a single variety of mushrooms is just fine, incorporating different types will deliver more texture and flavor. To make this vegan, simply use nondairy butter and opt for nutritional yeast rather than cheese.
Broccoli Rabe Pesto Pasta
Blitzing pungent broccoli rabe into a creamy, nutty pesto (along with walnuts, garlic, Parmesan, olive oil and lemon juice) helps mellow any bitterness in this verdant weeknight pasta. Start by quickly boiling the broccoli rabe and garlic, which takes the edge off. Fans of broccoli rabe will enjoy extra bites of the greens throughout this pasta dish, and those looking to round the flavors out further would do well to add cooked Italian sausage, cannellini beans or a dollop of ricotta cheese. The broccoli rabe pesto can also be used as a topping for crostini or pizza, and can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, or frozen for up to 3 months.
Pastina Soup
Often referred to simply as pastina, which means “little pasta” in Italian, this is Italy’s answer to the comforting cure-all chicken soup. Variations of pastina soup abound, but most include chicken broth, vegetables (in the form of sautéed onions, carrots and celery) and tiny pasta. The miniature star-shaped pasta most commonly used in this dish is sold as “stelline” — or “tiny stars” — in Italy, and simply as “pastina” in the United States. Acini de pepe works well, too, if pastina is unavailable. A tiny shape is key here, as the pasta continues to absorb broth after it cooks, giving the soup an almost creamy, porridge-like consistency. Some versions even call for puréeing the cooked vegetables and stirring them back into the soup to further thicken the broth. Homemade chicken broth would be an excellent choice here, but for those who need comfort in a hurry, this recipe uses the handy shortcut of reducing store-bought chicken broth and adding a Parmesan rind to the pot, to enrich and maximize the soup’s flavor.
Baked Mostaccioli
In this easy yet irresistible baked pasta recipe, a simple, meaty tomato sauce is layered with mostaccioli pasta and a creamy cheese mixture and baked until both melty (the cheese) and crisp (the pasta). Mostaccioli is identical to penne, but without the ridges. As a baked pasta dish, mostaccioli is similar to a traditional baked ziti and most commonly found on menus throughout the Midwest. Mostaccioli, like penne and ziti, is a favorite pasta shape for baked pasta dishes since the sauce and cheese easily find their way inside their long tubes, creating perfect bites. Adding cooked vegetables into the pasta mix is a welcome addition, and kale or broccoli work especially well. Skipping the sausage altogether and replacing it with cooked vegetables is also delicious and just as satisfying. And of course, swapping the mostaccioli with penne or ziti is always an option.
Laksa
While chicken curry laksa is a popular restaurant dish across Southeast Asia, making it at home is entirely doable. It’s as simple as blending a spice paste, cooking it off and poaching some chicken thighs. It gets its complexity from rempah, a fragrant spice paste made with ingredients such as lemongrass and galangal (which can be swapped for ginger). This recipe calls for making your own rempah, but to save time, you can buy a good-quality paste and enhance it with fresh lemongrass, ginger and garlic (see Tip 2). The coconut milk-based broth is spicy, savory and rich, but not heavy, based on the curry laksa found at hawker centers in Malaysia and Singapore. The flavor improves over time, so it’s a dish worth making in advance.
Yuzu-Miso Soba Noodle Soup
Sour like lemon, bitter like grapefruit, sweet like mandarins and tangy like oranges, yuzu might be the consummate citrus — and it brings all of that complex magic to this light, clean noodle broth. Miso pairs harmoniously with yuzu, bringing savory notes to balance the tartness. Yuzu juice is sold at Japanese and Asian grocery stores (or online), but if you are not able to access it, you can substitute with lemon juice for a broth that is equally impactful. Lemon tends to be more sour than yuzu, so add the fresh juice incrementally until you achieve your desired balance. A squeeze of lemon juice and the thinly sliced lemon slices inject a further jolt of freshness to the yuzu broth, brightening yuzu’s floral and herbal flavors.
Porcini Ragù
As a child living in Tuscany, Ixta Belfrage fell for a pasta rich with dried porcini mushrooms, served at the lone restaurant in the tiny mountain village of Acone. In her cookbook, “Mezcla” (Ten Speed Press, 2022), she pays homage to the power of porcini mushrooms, which are typically gathered from the wild and taste of it, luscious and nutty. They offer a shortcut to glory in this ragù that almost defies the name, because it doesn’t demand hours on the stove and attains a velvety intensity in practically no time at all. Leave the porcini to soak and swell back to life; chop; gently fry with tomato paste, garlic, chile and parsley; rain down black pepper; melt in some Parmesan; swirl with pasta water and porcini broth and let it bubble. A dab of cream, then a slicking and coating of the pasta, and it’s on the table.
French Onion Orecchiette
This baked pasta highlights caramelized onions in a riff on French onion soup. French onion soup is about slowly caramelized onions with deep flavor. Always make extra caramelized onions and store them in the freezer for whenever you need to add more oomph in a flash. Coaxing the onions to caramelize does indeed take time, but shortcuts don’t create the same depth. The onions really need to spend time slowly sweetening over a low flame. If you feel like the bottom of the pan is scorching before the onions have caramelized sufficiently, add a splash of water to release the fond and incorporate it into the onions before continuing.
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Pad Kee Mao (Thai Drunken Noodles)
Featuring an intensely aromatic and fiery sauce tossed with slivers of tender pork and a balanced amount of noodles, this version of drunken noodles is closer to what you’d find in Thailand than in most US restaurants.
Spicy, Creamy Weeknight Bolognese
This pasta sauce captures the soul-soothing essence of a long-simmering Bolognese even though it cooks quickly. Searing ground beef gives it a caramelized taste that mimics the depth of slow-cooked meat. Adding a few spoonfuls of red curry paste doesn’t make it taste like curry, but gives it instant nuance and depth. Some rich cream at the end rounds the sharp heat to an enveloping warmth. To save even more time, you can chop the vegetables while the meat is cooking. The sauce tastes great on any type of pasta, but it’s especially nice with varieties that can capture it in their curves.
Skillet Gnocchi Alla Vodka
Penne pasta might be the most common canvas for creamy, dreamy vodka sauce, but consider branching out: Toss plump, pan-fried gnocchi with the Italian-American favorite and the result is possibly even more cozy. To keep this dinner weeknight-friendly, everything comes together in a single pan. While the recipe is quick-moving, don’t skimp on the few minutes it takes to caramelize the tomato paste: Cooking an entire can of tomato paste until it’s rusty red in color and almost burnished in spots is the secret to a deeply savory sauce without hours of simmering on the stovetop.
Chicken Lo Mein
Chinese lo mein (“stirred noodles”) is beloved for its fun combination of egg noodles, veggies and protein tossed in a sweet and savory sauce. Making this popular takeout dish at home is a fantastic way to use up leftovers, as this dish is completely customizable depending on what’s available in the fridge. (No napa cabbage? Use green or purple!) Here, skinless boneless chicken thighs are thinly sliced for quick-cooking meat that remains juicy and tender. The rich sauce comes together in a flash and can easily be doubled for another stir-fry later on in the week. Go light on seasoning the veggies, since the sauce does bring a good amount of salt to the final dish.
Lemony Hummus Pasta
Hummus, with its nutty and garlicky flavor, makes a fantastic dip, spread or even a salad dressing, but it can also be a great base for a pasta sauce. A little garlic and shallot sizzled in olive oil, along with fresh lemon juice and zest, help amp up premade hummus. With a little water, the hummus thins out enough to become a creamy sauce to fully coat noodles. You can add chickpeas, fresh herbs, za’atar or almost any roasted or fresh vegetable to this pasta and it will feel like your own.
Sheet-Pan Gnocchi With Sausages and Peppers
Roasting gnocchi on a sheet pan gives the potato dumplings an irresistible, chewy-crisp texture with lovely browned edges. Here, the gnocchi are cooked with sausage and peppers, the classic sandwich combination, to make a rich and very savory one-pan meal. A handful of cherry tomatoes melt in the pan alongside everything else, adding a juicy element that’s almost like a sauce. Hearty and satisfying, this dish needs no accompaniment, though spooning it on top of a bed of arugula or baby spinach would add even more vegetables to the mix.
Tobiko Pasta
When you’re craving the dynamic flavors of sushi and the warmth of creamy pasta, this speedy meal hits the spot. It stars tobiko, the delightfully briny and slightly sweet flying fish roe that often coats the outside of a California roll. Other roes such as ikura (from salmon or trout) and masago (from capelin) work well too. They all lend rich seafood flavor with zero effort, not to mention fun pops of texture. The only thing you have to cook is the spaghetti, which gets tossed with cream cheese, Cheddar and pasta water to become a lovely sauce. Creamy but light, the sauce gains dimension from the tried-and-true combination of soy sauce and the horseradish bite of wasabi paste, which mellows out once combined with the hot pasta. Enjoy with your favorite sparkling wine or sake.
Lobster Mac and Cheese
This lobster mac and cheese harnesses the deep lobster flavor found in the head and shells to infuse the milk used to make the cheese sauce. As a result, a delightful undercurrent of intense lobster flavor runs throughout the dish, instead of just in random morsels. The lobster is very lightly cooked, ensuring that it doesn’t turn rubbery while it bakes in the cheese sauce. Though many lobster-studded mac and cheese recipes bake for an extended period of time, in this recipe, the cooked pasta, cream sauce and lobster are tossed together, topped with a seasoned panko mixture then briefly broiled just before serving. Perfect for company, this dish can easily be made ahead of time as part of a larger holiday spread; just ensure that the cheese sauce, pasta and lobster meat are cool before combining.
Kasha Varnishkes (Buckwheat, Bow Ties and Onions)
In the 1880s, this simple yet beloved dish of buckwheat (kasha), onion and bow tie noodles (varnishkes) came to New York’s Lower East Side with Eastern European Jewish immigrants. At the time, it was made with homemade egg noodles that were rolled out, cut into squares and painstakingly pinched into bow ties. Nowadays, store-bought bow tie egg noodles are traditional, but any hardy pasta, like gemelli or fusilli, will also work well. Lola Landa, chef and owner of Kafe Jerusalem in Lviv, Ukraine, suggests using European-style whole buckwheat groats for this dish. (The more broken-up varieties tend to get mushy unless toasted first with beaten egg.) What really makes this dish, however, are the onions. While Ms. Landa deep-fries thin slices of onion, I prefer to caramelize them in a skillet. To really gild the lily, add mushrooms before tossing everything together.
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Bolognese Lasagna Rolls (Rosette)
All the comforting flavors of a lasagna bolognese—meaty sauce, creamy besciamella, and savory Parmigiano-Reggiano—sliced into beautiful, individually portioned rosettes and baked in a casserole.
Mie Goreng
The key to achieving the signature sweet-smoky-salty flavor of Indonesian stir-fried noodles is to let the noodles cook, undisturbed, over high heat until you see small wisps of smoke. Javanese sweet soy sauce, also known as kecap manis, can be very sweet, so giving it a good cook will bring just enough of a bitter edge to its sweetness. If you’re making this dish for a crowd, don’t prepare more than two servings at a time, otherwise the noodles will crowd the pan and not brown properly, and you won’t get that smoky wok hei flavor. But don’t let all of this scare you from making mie goreng. This recipe, from Zulfikar Fahd, the chef and owner of Java Bali Kitchen, an Indonesian pop-up restaurant in Toronto, is satisfying and versatile, a quick and filling meal that uses up the odds and ends in your fridge.