Pasta & Noodles

Pasta is often thought of as an easy dinner for four or more people. But it’s a little annoying for just one or two, since most recipes make a large amount and it’s a bit of pain to pull out just enough spaghetti for one person from the box. “Make the whole recipe and have leftovers!” the crowd says. Well as much as my husband and I love pasta, we don’t actually want to eat what’s left of it for the whole rest of the week.

When you cook up perfectly tender, creamy macaroni and cheese in the slow cooker, it can feel you’ve won the dinner Olympics. You’ve got a dinner everyone will love while the slow cooker did all the work. Pasta in the slow cooker has a few pitfalls, though — it can either be undercooked or overcooked, depending on just a few subtle changes. These three tips will protect you from sad slow cooker pasta and make you a champion of dinner once again.

For as long as I’ve cooked pasta, I’ve cooked it just like everyone else — bring a pot of water to a boil, dump in noodles, cook until al dente, drain, and toss in the sauce of choosing. Things were going along swimmingly (I was eating great pasta at home) until I learned I could be eating even better pasta.

I first started haunting HomeGoods for the cookware. After nabbing a Staub cast iron grill pan for half price, I was hooked. I’d start planning my routes around town to pass by the store so that I had an excuse to run in and check the current selection. Eventually, I also discovered the other departments, particularly the food section, and now the discount housewares store is actually one of my favorite grocery shops.

I’m about to have a whole mess of fragmented spaghetti noodles for lunch, and the reason why is super dorky. No, not dorky — educational. When the Kitchn staff got wind that researchers at MIT were testing the long-held scientific theory that it is impossible to break a spaghetti noodle neatly into two halves, our hubris got the best of us. Of course it’s possible to break spaghetti into two pieces — just watch us! And we did.

We know: You already make pretty good lasagna. But what if you could make it wildly better? We’re talking the difference here between lasagna and ah-mazing lasagna. Now you’re listening? We’ve come up with a list of five things you need in order to make this happen. Some items on the list are little gadgets that’ll make a big difference, while others are straight-up tips. Try some of these out and let us know how it goes.

When you order pasta at a fancy restaurant, chances are it’ll come to you plated perfectly — swirled in a little mountain of noodles, basically tailor-made for Instagram. But how do restaurants do this? Long pasta can be tricky to work with without sauce splashing all over the rim or errant noodles escaping. Turns out there’s an easy way to avoid all of that if you follow a simple (and smart!) method.

We all know the best place for macaroni and cheese is in one’s mouth, but how we get it there is a matter of some debate. Do you use a fork or a spoon? The nation appears to be divided. There are YouTube videos and Reddit threads devoted to the “right” way to eat macaroni and cheese, and now cult-favorite brand Annie’s has conducted a nationwide survey to figure out what utensil people prefer to use when eating one of the most delicious dishes on the planet.

These are the game-changers that will give pasta night the boost you didn't know it needed.

I cook and bake with my two kids regularly, everything from weeknight dinners to the more advanced sugar cookies during the holidays and cakes for their birthdays, but I recently had a cooking-with-my-kids experience that was so revolutionary, so satisfying, and just plain fun that I have to tell you about it. Five years into this parenthood thing, and way longer in the cooking and eating business, you’d think I would have thought to make pasta from scratch with my kids sooner.

Here’s an instant way to add depth to your boxed mac and cheese. It’s an upgrade that will not only give it a spicy kick, but also sour, umami notes. Yes, I’m talking about kimchi. Kimchi is potent stuff, and that’s exactly why we love it in instant mac and cheese. Often the boxed stuff can fall flat — it’s only cheese and milk and starch, after all — and a little lift can really go a long way.

If what you crave is serious comfort with a kick, a pat of butter and a sprinkle of chile flakes will take you there. Think of the comfort you get from plain buttered noodles — it’s even better when savory broth and a bit of spice is involved. The richness from the butter complements and balances the spice from the chile flakes for an instant ramen experience that’s just a little more luxurious. Prepare the instant ramen according to the instructions on the package.

Lasagna is my kitchen superhero. When faced with a busy Tuesday or an unexpected table of 20, this dish always saves the day. With simple staple items on hand (noodles, canned sauce, cheese), you can throw together a satisfying meal with very little time or effort. Keep it totally vegetarian or add meat, spice as desired, and then let the oven finish the job. But guess what?

Q: I’m a lifelong pasta fiend, and like many cooks, I keep Junk-from-the-Fridge Pasta in my regular rotation. However, I have always had trouble with the last step: tossing the pasta and sauce together to get that nice, even distribution of pasta, sauce, and other ingredients (veg, meat, etc.). Somebody gets a plate of mostly toppings, and somebody gets a plate of lightly sauced pasta, but no one gets the middle ground.

Having a pot of soup around means that you have a great meal secret weapon. It doesn’t take that much more time to make a big pot than a little pot, leaving you with lots of soup to stash away in the fridge or freezer when you need a quick meal that reheats well. But sometimes that big pot of soup is, well, big. Big enough that after a couple of meals, you’re starting to get tired of it. Or perhaps you have just a small amount left but it’s not enough to make a full meal.

Spaghetti squash is a cylinder-shaped hard winter squash that ranges in color from pale yellow to canary yellow. When you cut one open, it has seeds inside and looks like most other hard squashes — so why is it called spaghetti squash? How spaghetti squash got its name is actually pretty obvious. When you cook the squash, the flesh develops threads that resemble spaghetti, and it’s long enough that you can twirl them around your fork. It’s often used as a substitute for pasta.

Q: I have always made a great, simple tomato sauce based on roasting tomatoes, hot peppers, onion and garlic in the oven at 350°F for an hour, and then simmering the puree of the roasted veggies with a teabag full of Italian spices and a cup of chicken stock. It’s rich and savory and very spicy and a little sweet and I love it.

Last week, while out for dinner at a little Italian restaurant in New York’s East Village, our table of eight gazed at the last item on the chalkboard menu with a collective blank stare: “Cencioni Bolognese.” Nobody, myself included, had ever heard of this pasta shape. Described by the server as, “larger than orecchiette, almost like a potato chip,” my curiosity was piqued. The result was surprisingly delicious.

Q: I prepared an extra pan of baked ziti on Christmas Day 2010. I did not need to use it, so I covered it in foil, and put it in the freezer where it still remains. The tray of baked ziti has cooked pasta, cooked tomato meat sauce with sausage, meatballs, and pork chops, and fresh ricotta and mozzarella cheese, as well as grated locatelli romano.I am concerned about the safety of defrosting and baking this dish, as it was prepared over four months ago.

It’s Italian Week here at The Kitchn, so we’re pumping you full of Italian recipes and other inspiration to make you feel like a real Italian cook. Of course, that means pasta. Maybe you’ve been rolling your own for some time, but have you experimented with shapes? I got turned on to the hand-crank pasta machine years ago, but it was only recently that I figured out how to make some of the fancy-pants shapes like rigatoni and bucatini from scratch.

Q: What is the best way to reheat cream-based leftovers like fettucine alfredo? My attempts for reheating dishes like these have resulted in oily, separated messes.I have the Barefoot Contessa’s lemon fusilli with arugula leftovers waiting for me in my fridge. Is there any hope?Sent by CarolynEditor: Carolyn, that recipe looks delicious!

Last night we made a very simple, quick dinner—spaghetti, broccoli, and tomato sauce—and it was even easier because we put everything that needed to boil in the same big pot. It takes a little finesse with the timing, but it streamlines the process and eliminates another dirty pan. Boiling your vegetables with your pasta isn’t going to give you layers of different flavors and textures, like adding roasted vegetables would.

When I learned how to make fresh pasta (thanks to my Italian mother-in-law) it was so easy that I was definitely encouraged to try it again soon! But we did run into one little snag near the end: my mother-in-law asked if we had a drying rack. Well, no.Pasta has to be quickly laid out or hung to dry as soon as it comes through the machine or as it’s rolled and cut. The thin noodles will dry quickly so you want them in the right shape for that.