Pasta & Noodles
1283 recipes found
Linguine With Lobster and Avocado
The summer season was beginning, whetting the appetite for a copious seafood salad or a tangy ceviche. But instead, I tore a page from ceviche’s playbook and assembled a pasta dish with the avocado, tomato, jalapeño, scallion, cilantro and citrus juice, along with lobster, to mingle with pasta. The result was brightly fresh-tasting, a warm-weather charmer with a touch of spice. Even during the brief cooking, some of the avocado will melt into the mixture, suavely coating the strands of linguine. But be sure that some of the avocado is still intact. The dish is satisfying as the main event yet light enough to serve as a first course followed by chicken or sausages hot off the grill.
Vegan Vietnamese Vegetarian Noodle Salad
Rigatoni Alla Zozzona
Rigatoni alla zozzona combines the ingredients of the four pasta dishes for which Romans are famous: amatriciana, cacio e pepe, carbonara and gricia. While many Italian meals are typically the result of simple flavors — “neat” preparations where only a few ingredients shine — rigatoni alla zozzona (which loosely translates to a big mess) is more of a kitchen sink approach, marrying the ingredients of the four pastas (tomato sauce, black pepper, egg yolks, cheese and guanciale) with sausage. Rigatoni’s sturdy tube shape provides the perfect vehicle to carry — and stand up to — the many components of the sauce.
Spaghetti With Fresh Tomato and Basil Sauce
This recipe came to The Times in 2003 from the chef Scott Conant, who was then cooking at his restaurant L'Impero in Manhattan. It is simple, classic Italian fare that makes the most of summer's tomatoes, but you can also make it with hothouse offerings and it will be delicious.
Pasta With Mint, Basil and Fresh Mozzarella
In this green pasta dish, basil, mint, Parmesan and garlic are blended into a smooth pesto-like sauce, then tossed with pasta, creamy mozzarella and crunchy pine nuts just before serving. Marinating the mozzarella in some of the sauce as the pasta cooks imbues the mild cheese with flavor, and allows it to start softening so it melts in contact with the pasta. Serve this hot or warm, when the cheese is supple and a little runny.
Pasta With Prosciutto and Whole Garlic
This pasta dish, known as maccheroni alla San Giovanniello in Italy, is amazing in the summer months, when there are good fresh tomatoes around. But you can make it any time of year with canned tomatoes. You could also make it with much less prosciutto, really just enough to season the oil — a quarter cup or so. No matter how much you use, start with a hunk of prosciutto so you can dice chunks; you don’t want little thin slices. If you've got great basil, you can even skip the cheese. If you use fresh tomatoes, you can blanch and peel the tomatoes if you don't like the skins, but it's not really necessary.
Crab Pasta With Snap Peas and Mint
Sweet crab meat and even sweeter sugar snap peas are a lovely match in this green-flecked springtime pasta. Don’t overlook the final garnish of olive oil, lemon juice, black pepper and flaky sea salt – it really brings out the saline flavor of the crab. Try replacing the mint with basil or chives, or even with tender pea shoots, which will increase the pea quotient in a delightful way.
Classic Pasta Alla Norma
This is down-home, primal Sicilian cooking, using inexpensive and commonly available ingredients: olive oil, eggplant, tomato and pasta. A showering of grated ricotta salata and toasted bread crumbs adorns this humble yet justly famous dish. The Sicilian composer Vincenzo Bellini adored it with such a passion that it was eventually named after his 19th-century opera "Norma" — or so goes the story.
Pasta With Butter, Sage And Parmesan
Like many simple sauces, this one takes less time to prepare than the pasta itself. Fresh, fragrant sage is my choice of herb here, but substitutions abound. Try parsley, thyme, chervil or other green herbs in its place. Or cook minced shallot or onion in the butter until translucent. You may even toast bread crumbs or chopped nuts in the butter, just until they're lightly browned. In any case, finish the sauce with a sprinkling of Parmesan, which not only adds its distinctive sharpness, but also thickens the mixture even further.
Amatriciana on the Fly
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. Here’s a half-hour challenge that’s no challenge at all. Set a large pot of salted water on the stove, over high heat. In a pan, sauté chopped bacon — slab bacon, if you can get it — in a glug or two of olive oil until it’s crisp. Remove the bacon and add chopped onion to the fat, cooking until it’s soft and fragrant. Figure the equivalent of a slice of bacon and half an onion per person. Meanwhile, boil water for enough pasta to feed your crowd, and cook it until it is just shy of tender. While it cooks, add some canned chopped tomatoes and the cooked bacon to the onions, and stir it to make a sauce. Drain the pasta, then toss it with a knob of butter, and add the pasta to the sauce. Slide all that into a warm serving bowl, then top with grated pecorino. A scattering of chopped parsley is never going to be a bad idea here, but you can omit it if the clock’s ticking. Serve with red-pepper flakes and extra cheese on the side. Sam Sifton features a no-recipe recipe every Wednesday in his What to Cook newsletter. Sign up to receive it. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Linguine With Lemon Sauce
The beauty of this recipe lies in its simplicity. All you need is pasta, a lemon, a knob of butter, a generous pour of heavy cream and a hunk of the best Parmesan you can get your hands on.
Ziti With Sausage, Sweet Corn, Broccoli and Tomatoes
When your body craves vegetables, but your mind craves pasta and meat, this 30-minute pasta dish is a happy compromise. It's loaded with fresh cherry tomatoes, corn and broccoli, and the Italian sausage (hot or sweet) adds flavor and heft. Whatever you do, don't feel wed to the recipe. Use cauliflower in the place of broccoli, chicken sausage instead of pork, chopped plum tomatoes instead of cherry. It's the kind of recipe that can be a little different (in a good way) every time you make it depending on what's in your vegetable drawer or C.S.A. box. Also, don't forget taste and season well with salt and pepper as you go. The vegetables need a little seasoning to stand up to the assertive flavors of the sausage and garlic.
Clam Pasta With Basil and Hot Pepper
The beauty of this dish is that the clams can be steamed in the time it takes to cook the pasta, so the whole affair can be put together quite rapidly. High heat and a covered pot will have the shells open in minutes.
James Beard’s Pleasant Pasta
Here's an absolutely lovely weeknight pasta dish that's a triple threat: It's easy, it's quick and it's delicious. Here's what you do: As the spaghetti boils, simmer some green peas with a little water until they're hot (or just dump the frozen peas in with the boiling pasta a couple minutes before the timer is set to ding). Drain the pasta and return to the pot with a button of butter. Add peas, prosciutto and cream and toss to coat. Season well with salt, pepper and grated Parmesan. Toss some more. Serve and swoon.
Lobster Pasta With Yellow Tomatoes and Basil
This is an uncomplicated dish for warm weather and sunny days. Olive oil, garlic, hot pepper, barely warmed tomatoes and tons of fresh basil are the only ingredients besides lobster and dried pasta, preferably a variety with a bit of texture, like frilly edged reginette, cooked perfectly al dente. The only real work is cooking the lobsters and chopping the meat. Once that’s done, go out and enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.
Mark Bittman's Pasta With Clams
Here is a simple, elegant take on pasta with clam sauce that serves as a beautiful, light dinner with salad, perfect in advance of a movie night or reading session on the couch with family or friends. The key to its success is using less pasta that you generally might, which helps place the focus of the dish squarely on the meaty clams.
Creamy One-Pot Mushroom and Leek Pasta
This deeply satisfying pasta, brimming with rich umami, is made in just one pot, an approach that bolsters its flavors. Once the leek and mushrooms are caramelized and sticking to the pot, they’re deglazed to lift all the extra depth from the bottom of the pan. (Use any liquid for deglazing, whether water, wine, stock, vinegar or tomato juice.) This recipe leaves the choice of mushrooms up to you: Cremini and shiitake are a good combination, but you could even use rehydrated porcinis. If you are craving greens to cut through the richness, stir a few handfuls of baby spinach into the pasta just before you turn off the heat.
Pasta With Meatballs and Herb Sauce
Before you use herbs as a main ingredient — it helps to know which ones work on a grand scale. Parsley, obviously, works in abundance: it’s clean-tasting, pleasantly grassy and almost never overwhelming. You can add literally a bunch (bunches!) of it to salad, soup, eggs, pasta, grains or beans. The same is largely true of basil, and you can use other mild herbs — chervil, chives, cilantro, dill, shiso — by at least the handful. (Mint is also useful but will easily take over a dish if you add too much of it. But all of these are great for making herb pastes, or pestos, alone or in combination. Use the same technique you use for basil pesto.)
Pasta With Fresh Herbs, Lemon and Peas
Buy a bunch of parsley along with basil or chives to keep on hand in your refrigerator. The herbs will keep for a week if properly stored. Produce departments often use misters, but greens don’t keep well once wet. When you get home, spin the herbs in salad spinner if they’re wet, wrap them in a paper towel and then bag them.
Pasta With Sardines and Fennel
This traditional Sicilian dish makes a festive main course, especially when served from a giant platter. Sweet and savory flavors mingle beautifully here, with currants, raisins, saffron and pine nuts. Aromatic wild fennel fronds and fresh sardines are preferred, but even if made with cultivated fennel and canned sardines, this is a magnificent dish.
Pamela Sherrid's Summer Pasta
Pamela Sherrid’s summer pasta, which The Times ran a recipe for in 1996, is a quintessential crossover dish: part tomatoes and warm pasta, part pasta salad and the best of both. It includes ripe summer tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, basil and cubes of fresh mozzarella. Ms. Sherrid’s recipe relies on prudent technique and a slacker’s sense of pace. First you combine the garlic, basil and oil and let the mixture macerate. A few hours later you add tomatoes and let it sit some more. Next, you pour the cooked rigatoni over the tomatoes, and cubes of mozzarella over the rigatoni. Then you gently mix the cheese into the pasta, coating it with a buttery veil of fat, before tossing it with the tomatoes at the bottom. If you have great tomatoes and mozzarella and you don’t overcook the pasta, it is a remarkably good dish. A puddle of sweet and salty tomato broth will form at the bottom of your bowl, so make sure you have some bread on hand to soak it up.
Breakfast Carbonara
Alton Brown developed this recipe for his book "EveryDayCook" because it hits all of the best notes of breakfast in a way that is much more appealing than just eggs, sausage and toast. If you eat pasta early in the day, he reasons, that leaves plenty of time to work it off. He’s a fan of cooking in cast iron, and calls for it here. But any good 12-inch sauté pan will do.
Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Pasta
This summery pasta is just as much about the vegetables as it is about the pasta itself. The star of the dish is the roasted eggplant, which caramelizes and softens in the oven. Those tender browned cubes then get tossed with cooked pasta and a quickly made sauce of fresh grated tomatoes, capers and chile flakes. Because the tomatoes need to be ripe and soft enough to fall into a purée when you rub the cut sides over the holes of a grater, heirloom tomatoes (which haven’t been bred for sturdiness during shipping) are a good choice here. But any juicy, flavorful, fleshy tomatoes will work. The cheese at the end is strictly optional, as is the butter. If you don’t eat dairy, feel free to leave them out.
