This Simple Veggie Pasta with Parmesan Sauce Wins Dinner
Kitchn’s Delicious Links column highlights recipes we’re excited about from the bloggers we love. Follow along every weekday as we post our favorites.
I used to avoid cooking squash, because it seemed like way too much work to cut into one. One time I bought four little kabocha squashes, and I left them sitting on the table so long everybody genuinely forgot they weren’t a centerpiece — even me! But with a better knife and a bit of practice, squash are very easy to prepare, and now I make them nearly every week during the winter. They’re healthful and tasty, and they can go in just about anything. Roasted squash is wonderful in salads, or in grain bowls, and it’s spectacular with pasta, especially in a cream sauce like this one.
This recipe pairs oven-roasted kabocha squash with shell-shaped pasta in a thyme-infused cream sauce with garlic and Parmesan. Roasting the squash in the oven gives it a gorgeous golden-brown color and brings out a sweet, nutty flavor that is glorious with a cream sauce, especially one with the salty-savory flavor of freshly grated Parmesan.
This could also work well with whatever squash you like best, or whatever you find at the market that week. Butternut squash is just as good, and you don’t even have to adjust the amount.
I think one of my favorite things about this recipe is that it calls for a cup and a half of baby kale or spinach to be mixed in at the end. I love greens in pasta, and I’m always trying to figure out ways to eat more vegetables, especially in the winter. This vegetable-heavy squash and spinach (or kale!) pasta sounds just about perfect.
Get the Recipe: Pumpkin Pasta in Parmesan Garlic Cream Sauce from Family Style Food
