Pasta Recipes & Meal Ideas

It results in a week of colorful and produce-packed, family-friendly meals.

Plenty of melty cheese and lots of warm tomato sauce ensure this is comfort food at its best.

It's ready in less than 10 minutes.

This sheet pan dinner is crispy, vibrant, and oh-so green.

It's just the thing you crave at the end of a busy day.

The very best way to get your summer pasta fix.

It deserves a permanent place in your fridge this summer.

It's ready in just 15 minutes.

Jorge and I met in 2008, and after three months of seriously dating, I decided to introduce him to my parents. Here is the recipe my mom made for dinner.

A step-by-step guide to making the easiest and very best cacio e pepe pasta.

It's time to head outside.

This veggie-packed pasta really, truly wows.

Creamy orzo flecked with sweet corn and basil is just what your week needs.

A quick and easy meal inspired by a Roman classic.

It's packed with vibrant veggies (and a bit of crispy bacon).

When dinner becomes distance learning, everyone wins.

Pasta plus three: These pasta salads are delicious enough for potlucks and quick enough for lunch. Learn them all by heart!

It's an absolute must-make.

Don't underestimate leftover confited tomatoes.

Let the pressure cooker do all the work for you.

As a child of the 1980s, one night a week was reserved for Hamburger Helper — a quick sauté of ground beef, some noodles, and sauce and you’ve got dinner. Today, I don’t need help from a box to get a quick skillet dinner on the table; I just need a basket of everyday ingredients and inspiration from an iconic sandwich. Philly cheesesteaks mean thinly sliced beef and sautéed onions and bell peppers tucked into a hoagie roll and smothered with melted cheese.

This soup really has it all.

It's the best thing you can make in you Instant Pot.

One smart shortcut cuts the prep time in half.

We don't know about you, but we're really into carbs right now.

It's like DIY Hamburger Helper (in the best way possible).

These are some of the easiest, most comforting dinners you can make.

It's ready in just 20 minutes.

And you only need five ingredients to make it.

You're just 5 ingredients and 15 minutes away from pasta perfection.

They're packed with equal parts cheese and veggies.

It's ready in less than half an hour.

Crispy on the outside and light-as-air on the inside.

It's fast, fresh, and super delicious.

This magical low-lift mac and cheese recipe is a weeknight dinner miracle.

I've been making it for years.

Easy to make, easy to clean up.

This 20-minute meal practically makes itself.

Mushrooms, shallots, store-bought gnocchi.

This is a total dinner game changer.

I struggled with this deceptively simple dish for years until I came across this technique.

Cacio e Pepe is the George Clooney of recipes.

We all know what it’s like to come home hungry at the end of a long day and not want to spend a ton of time in the kitchen. Instead, we’ll turn to our default dinners — the fast, familiar bites we can toss together with whatever’s in our fridge or pantry (with bonus points if the end result is quick, cheap, and, of course, delicious). And famous food figures — from chefs, to TV hosts, to cookbook authors — feel that way too.

Gabe and I were engaged in Rome, so any dish that hints back to our days there — wandering Italy’s cobblestone streets, walking hand-in-hand, dreaming about our lives together — brings out a certain bit of romance. Cacio e Pepe is essentially just three ingredients, and yet its final flavor is deep, rich, and so satisfying, especially if said pasta is served in a dish made of baked cheese, as we are known to do. → Buy Ashley’s Book!

It's like creamed corn meets pasta, but even better.

This one goes out to all the cilantro-lovers.

this postVegetarian TimesThis book is a straightforward, colorful, and very beautiful book full of recipes for the vegan. There are chapters for every dish and meal, from starters and drinks, to burgers and sandwiches, easy beans and lentils, and sweet treats. There is even a chapter of sauces, dips, spreads, and jams.There are many great vegan cookbooks out there, and this one definitely joins their ranks.

Slow-simmered bolognese sauce ranks high among comfort dishes that make diners swoon. A well-prepared ragu of this kind takes most of the day to prepare, perfuming the whole house in the process, making it a true labor of love. The results are a deeply flavored sauce with an almost creamy texture, perfect for dressing pasta and luscious enough for impressing dinner guests.

Hearty and vegan? Is it possible? Yes, of course! We pulled recipes from a few vegan cookbooks hitting the market this year and asked one of our food photographers and stylists, Maria Siriano, who happens to be vegan, for her thoughts on the recipes. Up first in this series is a homestyle vegan chickpea noodle soup from Homestyle Vegan, by Amber St. Peter of Fettle Vegan.

Wait until you try the cashew cream!

This vegan mac and cheese has a veggie secret.

It could even dupe your cheese-loving friends.

It's a 30-minute pasta dinner that's easy to love.

It comes together in just one pot.

Trader Joe’s Harvest Grain BlendAdd a little shredded chicken or crumbled sausage for a hearty one-dish meal; substitute vegetable broth to make it vegan. It’s an utterly flexible dish, and we’re going to the kitchen to eat our leftovers now!

Here’s a quick, easy weeknight dinner. You can cook the whole shebang, from start to finish, in about 20 minutes. At least, I did last night! This dish has a bit of a kick to it, depending on the amount of chili flakes you use. I love it spicy and hot; it goes great with a cold beer! There’s a zing from the lemon in both the couscous and the shrimp, a hot punch from the chili flakes, and that sweetness from the basil. It’s so fast, so easy.

Many a potluck or summer cookout has been graced with a bowl of three-bean salad, and I have to confess that I usually skip right over it. The combination of beans and herbs just never really tasted all that exciting to me, so to jazz things up and make it more substantial, I tinkered with the recipe and added chewy pearl couscous and a ton of fresh herbs to this picnic classic.

In my conversation with chef Jacques Pépin, it struck me how many times he mentioned cooking smarter and how things didn’t have to be unnecessarily complicated. This recipe is a great example of that. You can turn a little bit of leftover cooked fish into a comforting casserole that will feed the whole family! Jacques says, “This is a delicious and economical way of using leftovers from a whole fish or fillets of any fish, from salmon to catfish.

Take all your favorite components of Spanish paella, combine them with crowd-pleasing orzo pasta, and the result is a quick weeknight dinner the whole family will agree on. Fragrant chicken sausage joins forces with smoked paprika, sweet tomatoes, and lots of juicy shrimp to make a one-pan pasta that tastes familiar yet feels new. It’s a fast dinner that’s easy on the wallet, and is sure to find a permanent spot on your meal planning roster.

Breadcrumbs usually lie like a lazy blanket on top of pasta or casseroles. For this quick dish, I toasted them up in flavored olive oil, tossed them with roasted cauliflower, and let them shine as a main ingredient. Cauliflower and breadcrumbs alone can be bland, so I added flavor by first roasting the cauliflower in the oven. Do be sure to take the time to cut the cauliflower into tiny, bite-sized florets.

You're welcome.

It's what makes it so deliciously creamy — and yet not heavy at all.

I am definitely a cold weather cook. Even in the spring and summer I can’t seem to stop braising meats and baking casseroles. Comfort food is definitely a major theme in my kitchen. And while exploring Southern cuisine — which is the ultimate comfort food in my book — is my passion, I also enjoy exploring the comfort foods of other nations. Since it’s Pasta Week at The Kitchn, I thought I’d share one of my favorite carb-loaded recipes.

Actual Greeks would probably take umbrage at our title here. We’re throwing some olives and feta in our pasta and calling it Greek? Well, sort of, yes. Have you ever made pasta with ground lamb? When I buy it, it’s almost always for meatballs. But I decided to throw it into some leftover macaroni (you could use any short, fat pasta), and it was delicious. Lamb is not that expensive, either, and adds a really nice richness.

There’s more to this pasta dish than just chicken, olives, and feta. There are some artichoke hearts, fresh oregano, and a lemon vinaigrette — a whole mess of salty, tangy flavors. The idea for this recipe started with a leftover container of olives. I was imagining a pasta that mimicked a Greek salad, so we shopped for some feta cheese and a few fresh (pitted) olives to supplement the ones we had (which we had to pit — whew).

Make this vibrant, flavorful side dish when you're craving pasta and vegetables!