17 pasta recipes, perfect from starch to finish

What makes Sugo Finto “fake,” exactly? The fact that it doesn’t have meat. But with all the other flavors bursting forth from this freewheeling vegetable-based pasta sauce, you won’t feel like you’re missing out on the protein, especially not once you pour it over some fresh orecchiette and call it a meal. If you have never before enjoyed the tart, lemony flavors of cactus paddles in your cooking, it’s time to change that immediately. This recipe is the perfect place to start, and we recommend some other great culinary uses for cactus, too. Get the recipe for Sugo Finto here.

Forget what you think you know about macaroni salad. Instead of mayo or Miracle Whip, this recipe starts with a rich, garlicky aioli. It also takes its cues from Hawaiian versions, in which the pasta is tossed with vinegar as soon as it’s out of the pot. And instead of the classic carrots and celery, we go all-in with curly parsley for a pleasing crunch. Your new favorite side dish awaits you. Get the recipe for Garlicky Lemon Herb Macaroni Salad here.

This recipe comes courtesy of Katie Quinn, author of the cookbook Cheese, Wine, and Bread: Discovering the Magic of Fermentation in England, Italy, and France. The Tuscan preparation involves mixing the noodles with a cup of red wine, turning them a lovely plum color. “Spaghetti all’ubriaco—‘drunken spaghetti’—isn’t as inebriated as it sounds,” Quinn writes. “The heat burns off the alcohol in the wine.” Cheese, garlic, nuts, and red pepper flakes round out the dish, creating a satiny, photogenic plate of pasta. Get the recipe for Drunken Spaghetti here.

Though this recipe for Caramelized Mushroom Pasta takes a decent amount of time to come together, nearly all of that time is inactive, requiring little more than occasional stirring. It starts with two whole pounds of mushrooms, because when an ingredient tastes this good, it’s best not to skimp on it. Miso and Parmesan cheese dial up the umami in this dish even further, forming one unforgettable plate of pasta. With this new approach, you’ll never need to settle for mediocre mushrooms again. Get the recipe for Caramelized Mushroom Pasta here.

For far too long, the term “stuffed shells” referred exclusively to a pasta dish in which shells are stuffed with cheese and baked in sauce. This recipe for Ultimate Stuffed Shells, though, consists of shells stuffed with sauce and baked in cheese, for an inside-out dinner experience that you will want to recreate again and again. Use the biggest baking dish you own for this, and don’t be surprised if there aren’t many leftovers at the end. Get the recipe for Ultimate Stuffed Shells here.

Adopting a primarily plant-based diet is one of the best possible things you can do for the planet, and a great pasta recipe, such as this one for Super Squash, Sage, & Shitake Pasta, can make it that much easier to reduce your meat and dairy intake. This recipe comes to us from Plants Only Kitchen, the latest cookbook from Avant Garde Vegan’s Gaz Oakley. To make this a bit more weeknight-friendly, use pre-cut butternut squash that’s been chopped small, which will roast in as little as 20 minutes—just enough time for you to get the rest of the pasta together. Get the recipe for Super Squash, Sage, & Shitake Pasta here.

At every potluck throughout history, there has been pasta salad, a dish accompanied by some loose rules: no mayo (that’s a macaroni salad), some sort of oil and vinegar, and some combination of meat, cheese, and vegetables. But there exists a secret ingredient whose very purpose is to heighten pasta salad. It’s a spice blend called Salad Supreme, and you’ll never want to make another batch without it. Get the recipe for Perfect Pasta Salad here.

If you want to eat pasta while also getting a huge serving of vegetables, this Zucchini Pesto Pasta is the way to do it. Zucchini has a ridiculously high water content, which makes it the perfect summer sauce when steamed and pureed. Throw in a bit of basil, cheese, and toasted nuts, and you’ve got a thick pesto “cream” sauce without spending $60 on groceries. You can 86 the cheese or swap it out for a plant-based alternative to make this sauce 100% vegan, and it’ll still taste luxurious and creamy. Get the recipe for Zucchini Pesto Pasta here.

Gnocchi is made from a mixture of flour and cooked potatoes, and its heft means that it should be treated differently from other pastas. This recipe for Crispy Gnocchi and Raw Tomato Sauce approaches gnocchi more like croutons for a salad: the pasta is “fried” into crispy little potato nuggets with the help of an air fryer, then tossed with a raw tomato sauce that gains more flavor the longer it sits. Overall, it’s a versatile and cost-effective pasta dish that can be modified based on whatever produce and herbs are available. Even if you don’t have an air fryer, you should try roasting your gnocchi in the oven for a whole new approach to these doughy little dumplings. Find the recipe for Crispy Gnocchi and Raw Tomato Sauce here.

This recipe, Pasta With Blistered Tomatoes and Egg Yolk, is for when you’re missing summer tomatoes, which is, what, nine months of the year here in the Midwest? The key to evoking summer tomato flavor is your broiler. Get the tomatoes good and jammy and pair them with a silky egg yolk mixed right into the pasta just before you eat it—the result is a simple, memorable tagliatelle that will instantly transport you to warmer days. Get the recipe for Pasta With Blistered Tomatoes And Egg Yolk here.

The point of a well-stocked kitchen isn’t just to have things on hand that are listed in the recipes you use—it’s also to have things on hand that can be made delicious with very little little effort. This Chicken Sausage Hodgepodge Pasta wrangles grocery staples into one shockingly tasty dish, and makes enough that you’ll have plenty of leftovers even if you have a whole household to feed. You can add or subtract whichever elements you like depending on what’s in your fridge, but try working in grape tomatoes, feta, spinach, artichoke hearts, chicken sausage, and olives. Get the recipe for Chicken Sausage Hodgepodge Pasta here.

Yoshoku, the Japanese take on on Western cooking, is a cuisine that never disappoints—especially Itameshi, or Japanese-Italian food, which features familiar pasta classics imbued with deeper umami flavor. This recipe for Miso-Butter Spaghetti Carbonara tries to reproduce one such dish from Trattoria Nakamura-Ya in Las Vegas, using butter to bring all the disparate elements together. Strips of seasoned nori on top make this more identifiably Japanese, as does a dash of Tabasco sauce over the top. Get the recipe for Miso-Butter Spaghetti Carbonara here.

The only real trick involved in this Vodka Cream Pasta is waiting it out. You need to give the tomatoes time to cook down, but really, that’s about it. The vodka adds a richness to the sauce (as does the cream, obviously), making this a delicious and super easy pantry dinner. One warning: don’t try to swap out the heavy cream for half-and-half, as it won’t bring the whole sauce together. Find the recipe for Vodka Cream Pasta here.

Green cabbage is some seriously underrated produce. It’s cheap, it has a long shelf life, and it’s damn tasty as long as you remember not to boil it. This Butter Braised Cabbage Fettuccine pasta recipe borrows from Marcella Hazan’s revelatory recipe for Venetian smothered cabbage, which is impossibly easy to make. Its ingredients are pedestrian and cheap, and yet it’s somehow one of the most delicious things you could ever taste. Get the recipe for Butter Braised Cabbage Fettuccine here.

This Lemon Spaghetti dish, adapted from Sophia Loren’s cookbook, comes together with astonishing ease. You can make the whole sauce while the water is boiling. Once you combine the base sauce with your spaghetti, fettuccine, or other thin pasta, then you are free to amp this dish up with whatever you’d like. At the end you will have a deceptively simple and delicious plate of pasta. It’s a little rich, but it’s also intoxicating—just like Sophia Loren herself. Get the recipe for Lemon Spaghetti here.

Nothing uses up leftovers like a spaghetti pie. Deli meats and stray vegetables get sautéed together in a pan with spaghetti. Add whisked eggs and cheese before throwing it into the oven. What comes out is, essentially, a frittata with spaghetti in it. It’s an easy way to wrangle in a bunch of miscellaneous ingredients into a Sunday supper (or hangover cure). Most importantly, the recipe is just a suggestion. You can take anything, put it into a sauté pan with spaghetti and eggs, and eat the results. Get the recipe for Spaghetti Pie here.

Sometimes we find ourselves with pantry goods of utterly unknown origin. Canned or tinned seafood is a protein that often gets thrown into the grocery cart with the vague idea that “we can always use it for something.” But what? This pasta dish: Angel Hair Pasta with Canned Crab Meat. It’s a recipe that can be thrown together in 10 minutes and makes use of angel hair pasta, crab meat, and whatever else is in your cupboards. Or, if canned crab meat isn’t something lurking in your pantry, you can just borrow this recipe’s technique of slow-caramelizing tomato paste + butter + lemon + protein, which will always result in something delicious. Get the recipe for Angel Hair Pasta with Canned Crab Meat here.