Pasta & Noodles
1283 recipes found
Sopa de Fideo y Frijoles con Chorizo (Fideo and Bean Soup With Chorizo)
This weeknight-fast soup — a common and comforting family meal in Mexico — is easy to prepare and uses ingredients typically stocked in the Mexican kitchen like beans, chorizo and fideo noodles. Puréeing the beans with chicken stock, tomatoes, oregano and spices gives the soup a rich and hearty finish, while bits of broken pasta and spicy chorizo add bite. Toasting the pasta adds a nutty depth to the flavor that, together with the fire-roasted tomatoes and stock, give the impression that this soup has simmered for hours, not 10 minutes.
Braised Broccoli Pasta
By creating a sauce from just broccoli, onions, olive oil and starchy pasta water, this recipe feels Italian in spirit but embraces an unexpected technique. Pulverize onion, broccoli and garlic in a food processor, then cook it in hot oil, much like sofrito, extracting as much flavor as possible. Add stock, orecchiette and broccoli florets, then watch the mixture go from soup, to stew, to saucy pasta. For best results, stick to the ingredients, measurements and temperatures listed in the recipe: Use a different pasta shape, and it will likely overcook; increase the amount of orecchiette, and there won’t be enough liquid; increase the heat and the liquid will evaporate before the pasta cooks through. But with attention, this recipe will yield a glossy pasta that makes cheap, accessible ingredients taste positively lush.
Gochujang Shrimp Pasta
Easy but exciting, this five-ingredient pasta dish is spiked with spicy gochujang, a Korean red chile paste that provides heat and complexity. Chopping the shrimp into bite-size pieces before cooking ensures that they will distribute more evenly in the finished dish, leaving you with perfect bite after perfect bite. Once that’s done, sear the chopped shrimp in olive oil, set them aside, then toss in scallions, halved cherry tomatoes, gochujang and a splash of pasta water for a supereasy pan sauce. Toss with your cooked pasta and shrimp until everything comes together and is slicked with vibrant sauce.
One-Pot Tortellini with Prosciutto and Peas
Luxurious in the end result but not in process, this quick, one-pot pasta features crisp shards of salty prosciutto, soft pillows of tortellini and bright pops of sweet peas in a silky lemon cream sauce. The dish is inspired by pasta alla papalina, a more delicate carbonara that uses prosciutto instead of guanciale and Parmesan instead of Pecorino. While pasta alla papalina often uses long noodles, this dish uses tortellini and cooks them right in the broth and heavy cream: No waiting for a pot of water to boil, and the starch from the pasta helps the half-and-half thicken into a sauce. Serve alongside an arugula salad or seared asparagus. You can use bacon instead of prosciutto, which will add some smokiness.
Creamy Garlic Pasta With Greens
In this 20-minute weeknight pasta, one of the tastiest, most versatile sauces, aioli (or garlic mayonnaise) is dolloped over a simple bowl of spaghetti tossed with wilted greens. With hardly any cooking and minimal knifework, this one-pot dish starts out by simply cooking the pasta. Meanwhile, a quick aioli is whipped up by stirring garlic, lemon and a little olive oil into store-bought mayonnaise. You’ll generously spoon that shortcut aioli over the pasta, coating each noodle with its rich and fresh garlicky bite. (Leftover aioli can be saved for later use throughout the week.) Serve this pasta with sausages and peppers or a rotisserie chicken.
Spring Chicken With Mushroom and Lemon
For a main course, chicken-noodle anything is always an attractive option, and here, boneless, skinless chicken thighs come together with button mushrooms and a sauce of chicken broth, white wine and crème fraîche for a bright, filling stew. To make it sparkle, it’s all finished with a generous handful of tender sweet herbs and lots — lots! — of lemon zest. Egg noodles, or fresh pasta, such as pappardelle, are a good choice.
Garlicky Crab and Brown Butter Pasta
The classic combination of crab, butter, garlic and lemon come together to form a rich, silky sauce in less than the time it takes to boil pasta. Browning the butter adds a complex caramel flavor that underscores the sweetness of the briny crab. This is delicious with regular butter and canned crab and becomes a luxurious special occasion dish with European-style butter and fresh crab meat. Serve alongside simply sautéed greens and a radicchio salad for a complete, relaxed meal.
Baked Cheesy Chicken and Mushroom Pasta
An irresistible layer of simultaneously melty and crunchy cheese tops this simple, comforting weeknight meal. Meaty mushrooms, juicy chicken and succulent strands of spaghetti make it a recipe fit for hearty appetites, and the efficiency of doing most of the active cooking on the stovetop drastically cuts the baking time. Budget-friendly chicken breasts — which are worth stocking up on when on sale and freezing — stay tender as the pasta bakes thanks to the assistance of some broth. The results are ready in just 30 minutes, but taste like a long-baked casserole.
Quick Lamb Ragù With Artichokes
While many meat ragùs are hearty and long-simmered, this 30-minute riff has a little spring in its step. Ground lamb, cherry tomatoes and canned artichokes quickly bubble into a pasta sauce that’s brawny, sweet and pleasantly bitter. This trio of ingredients, often stewed with herbs and white wine, is a common springtime combination throughout the Mediterranean. Fresh mint or basil add lightness, and if you have a bottle of wine open, add a generous splash. For additional richness, top portions with ricotta or grated Pecorino.
Weeknight Spinach and Ricotta Lasagna
While it is hard to beat the perfection of a meticulously layered lasagna, this cheater’s version delivers all the comforting vibes with minimal effort. This weeknight dish requires no chopping; just mixing and baking. Choose ease, with oven-ready lasagna sheets, as they don’t require preboiling and will cook quicker than the regular ones. (Fresh lasagna sheets will certainly work, too, with the same cooking time.) Don’t drain the thawed spinach, as the extra moisture will help keep this dish moist and saucy. The easiest way to thaw spinach is to leave it overnight in the fridge; it can also be defrosted quickly in the microwave.
Sheet-Pan Japchae
Though readily available at restaurants today, japchae — the royal Korean stir-fried glass noodle dish — is traditionally a banquet affair, eaten just a few times a year at holidays and special occasions because the labor to produce it is so high. Each vegetable, among a rainbowed array, is ordinarily stir-fried individually, but in this variation, all of the vegetables roast together on the same sheet pan in color-blocked sections for ease and deliciousness. The roasted vegetables caramelize with less effort, and then need only to be tossed with the noodles and sauce, making japchae a dish within reach for any night of the week. The spinach, mushrooms and bell pepper recall key flavors of typical japchae, but you can use whatever vegetables you have on hand or prefer. Frozen spinach might not be a conventional ingredient, but it roasts beautifully and ends up tasting almost like umami-rich kale chips or roasted seaweed. You can add a drop of toasted sesame oil, if you’d like, but the toasted sesame seeds here lend enough of that quintessential aromatic nuttiness that makes japchae taste so regal.
Spicy Mushroom and Tofu Mazemen
Mazemen, sometimes known as mazesoba or abura soba, is a brothless ramen dish believed to have originated in Nagoya, Japan. Inspired by a punchier and spicier Taiwanese flavor profile, the soup is replaced with an intensely savory sauce. In this vegan take, this sesame paste-based sauce delivers a rich finish, bolstered with umami agents such as miso, soy sauce and chile crisp. Mazemen, which translates to mixed noodles in Japanese, should be tossed before eating, so that the sauce and the toppings distribute evenly through the noodles. While this recipe is vegan, an egg yolk or an onsen tamago (soft-cooked egg) is a common mazemen topping, which falls apart as it is tossed through the noodles, leaving a silky and creamy finish.
Mortadella Carbonara
This pasta celebrates mortadella, the soft Italian cold cut made of pork seasoned with black pepper and nutmeg, and often dotted with pistachios. As ribbons of the tender, delicately spiced meat tangle with long noodles, its milky fat melts into the sauce of egg and cheese for an incredibly silky dish. By using mortadella instead of guanciale, as is traditional in carbonara, you don’t need to cook the meat first, so this dish can be made in one pot. Green peas add pops of freshness, but skip a pistachio, basil or mint garnish (tempting as it may be) to avoid detracting from the main attraction. Top the finished dish with more black pepper and Parmesan and savor all the richness mortadella has to offer.
Baked Tomato Pasta With Harissa and Halloumi
Keeping a jar of store-bought pasta sauce in your pantry pays high dividends in this five-ingredient recipe. Jarred pasta sauce is ripe for enhancement; here, a confident amount of harissa injects not only spice, but also a deep smoky, savory tang. This is a versatile and adaptable weeknight baked pasta: You can experiment with different flavors of sauce to achieve a different finish; try vodka sauce for a creamier finish or arrabbiata for something spicier. Grating the halloumi allows the firm, salty cheese to melt evenly through the pasta. A hefty amount of dill brings much needed lightness to this dish, but you could substitute parsley or chives.
Pepperoni Baked Pasta
This cozy dish takes all of the flavors of your favorite pepperoni pizza and spins them into a family-friendly baked pasta that is quick and easy to make. Make sure to cook the pasta just shy of al dente to ensure that the finished pasta doesn’t get mushy. Pepperoni adds nice heat and spice, but feel free to add olives, sautéed mushrooms, or any of your favorite pizza toppings to the mix. If you don’t have time or inclination to make your own tomato sauce, crisp the pepperoni as directed in Step 3, skip the garlic and crushed red pepper, then add 48 ounces of your favorite marinara sauce to the pot used to crisp the pepperoni. Stir the sauce to scrape up any browned bits and warm it through, then turn off the heat and proceed to Step 6.
Skillet Pasta With Bacon and Eggs
Emulsifying creamy carbonara sauce can feel trickier than treading a tightrope, but this skillet pasta recipe fulfills those cravings with ease, and all in one pan. Start by searing some sliced bacon until crisp, toasting orzo in the rendered bacon fat, then simmering with stock until pasta is al dente. Next, you’ll stir in a few handfuls of Parmesan, then crack eggs right into the nearly cooked pasta. The whites will cook until creamy, but the yolks should remain runny, so that as you eat, the yolk mingles with the pasta for silky spoonfuls.
Macaroni and Peas
This recipe starts with a love of store-bought mac and cheese, amplified with frozen peas and diced ham. But then, it adds a few layers of flavor, increasing the peas, sautéing the cured pork and using a from-scratch garlicky Parmesan sauce inspired by classic pasta paglia e fieno (“straw and hay pasta,” so named because it’s typically made with a combination of plain and green fettuccine pastas that resembles fresh and dried grass). While pasta paglia e fieno typically uses reduced heavy cream as its sauce, this recipe keeps it a little lighter by decreasing the amount of cream and instead relying on eggs to give the sauce its clingy, glossy texture, like in a good carbonara. A finish of parsley and mint further lightens it.
Peanut Butter Noodles
This nutty midnight pasta is a dream to cook, as it requires just a handful of pantry staples and one pot. Peanut butter (the less fancy, the better) anchors a creamy sauce swathed in umami. Accentuated by a good, salty Parmesan, these noodles recall those cheesy peanut butter sandwich crackers. They make an ideal dinner for one, but the amounts can easily be doubled or quadrupled as needed. For an equally gripping vegan alternative, try swapping out the butter for olive oil and the cheese for nutritional yeast.
One-Pot Creamy Chicken and Noodles
Think of this warming dish as a relay race, each ingredient handing its flavor to the next. During the (almost!) hands-off cooking, a head of garlic and a whole chicken stuffed with a Parmesan rind roast, then give themselves to salted water, which in turn flavors the egg noodles that soften around the bird. Salt and water are your best tools here: Season the chicken, season the water and season both again. Don’t hesitate to add more water as the noodles are cooking to make sure they’re submerged. Every brand will absorb a slightly different amount of liquid, and you want a result that’s splashy enough to take on all the Parmesan you will grate at the table. Use your largest pot so everything fits. A 7- to 9-quart Dutch oven has ideal proportions with its wide base and chicken-height sides. You can substitute any short, quick-cooking pasta for egg noodles, and introduce sautéed mushrooms, spinach or herbs at the end, if that’s your mood.
Cajun-Style Shrimp Alfredo
Fettuccine Alfredo is an Italian classic. Its luscious sauce is traditionally created using only two primary ingredients: butter and Parmesan. When stirring a large quantity of cheese into pasta, the key to achieving a fully emulsified sauce — a creamy consistency — is making sure to save and utilize some of the pasta cooking water. This recipe gives the dish a Cajun spin by adding spiced shrimp, celery, bell pepper, onion, garlic and jalapeño, finishing it with a sharp hit of Creole mustard. If you can’t find Creole mustard, a mix of Dijon and whole-grain mustards works well.
Hand-Pulled Noodles
The pleasantly chewy texture of these long Chinese noodles is part of the allure, as is the artful practice of delicately pulling the fresh wheat dough to create the strands. Hand-pulling noodles, or la mian, is a technique that has been passed from generation to generation, and the results cannot be replicated with a machine. With just bread flour, water and salt, a streamlined recipe, and a little patience, you really can make these fresh noodles at home. Using a high-gluten flour like bread flour, and allowing an ample amount of rest time, will make the dough easier to pull. Once cooked, these springy noodles can be served in a simple broth accompanied by fresh vegetables and topped with a tongue tingling chile crisp.
Black Pepper and Onion Spaghetti
This rendition of Florentine spaghetti with red onions is so superlative, it has remained on the menu at Locanda Vini e Olii since the restaurant opened in Brooklyn in 2001. Michele Baldacci, the chef and co-owner, recommends a mixture of white and red onions for a more delicate, saucy result, and cooking them in a covered pot so they slowly braise in olive oil and their own juices. The sweetness of the onions is accented by tarragon and black pepper, plus optional grated cheese (which can be omitted for vegan diners). “We never add anything [else], we’re boring,” Mr. Baldacci said, but reckons livers would be delicious.
Ravioli
This easy method for making ravioli relies on a food processor to do much of the kneading, making it beginner-friendly and fairly hands-off for a homemade pasta. The dough is filled with a simple ricotta filling, but stuffing it with a more substantial meat or vegetable filling would be equally delicious. (Just keep in mind that whatever you use should be firm enough to hold up as the pasta cooks.) Toss ravioli in any number of classic Italian-type sauces, such as pesto, tomato or alfredo, or plan ahead and freeze the uncooked ravioli for fresh pasta at a moment’s notice (see Tip 1).
Chicken Mei Fun
A tangle of vermicelli noodles tossed with chicken (or other protein) and a hodgepodge of veggies in a savory sauce are the essential components of mei fun, the versatile Chinese stir-fry whose name means “rice noodles” in Cantonese. Here, chicken, cabbage, carrot and bell pepper are used, but feel free to switch up ingredients as you wish, subbing in strips of pork tenderloin, thinly sliced beef or bite-sized shrimp for the chicken, and celery, onion or broccoli for the veggies. While mei fun, or chow mei fun as it is sometimes known, can serve as a blank canvas for whatever is hanging out in your fridge, some versions have become a dish in their own right, including Singapore mei fun, a bright yellow variation seasoned with curry powder.