Simple Pasta Recipes

[TheWanderingScholar]

During a school assignment, I realized that I do not really cook from scratch even though I feel like I eat healthier than a majority of my peers i.e. most of my food is vegetables,fruits, easy-to-make pastas, and canned soups w/ occassionally splurge in Ramen. Hey, I said in the comparison! ). So I decided to try and make pasta from scratch. I already had an idea what to make for pasta noodles themselves. What I really need to figure out is how to make the sauce on the cheap. I have been thinking a base of olive oil base with seasonings definitely.

Anyone have any ideas?

[Jean]

Pesto are quickly made and really good. You need four things:

Oil (olive oil is fine)
Nuts (any kind of nut works probably)
Some plant
And a hard cheese (usually parmegiano, but gran padano or gruyère works fine, an old cheddar could work as well).

A sure combination is Pine pinion and fresh basil leaves.
But Walnut and tomatoes is good too.

You just shred everything together in more or less equal proportions.

You should experiment with what is cheaply available where you live.
You can make a huge amount and store it, It preserves well

OTOH, making the pasta manualy is a lot of work. Bether buy some dry pasta. Maybe you already know this, but the key point to cook pasta is to wait for the water to boil before you put the pasta in the water. Additionaly, you must make sure that you have enough water.

An other kind of sauce is all the tomato based sauces:
Dice and fry some onions and garlic in oil (olive or canola works well)
At this point, you can add diced bacon or shreded meat or anything you want
Add some caned tomatoes
Add spices and/or additional vegetables
let cook for as long as you can wait.

Only compulsory ingredients are onions, oil and tomatoes

You need to experiment

Or really simple, you just fry a lot of garlic in a lot of olive oil, and you put it on your pasta, that's very good too.
Or just had some butter and peper on your cooked pasta.

Cooking can be self tought, you will quickly learn to make a few enjoyable reciepe if you do it every day.

[pukingRainbows]

Simplest sauce I've made:

You can do this right in the bowl after adding the just cooked pasta.

Toss in butter (or olive oil) and parmesan cheese. Stir it up and sauce will form.
Add pepper to taste. Chili flakes too if you like.

Done! And it's delicious.

You can also add baby spinach or dandelion greens if you want vegetables without any additional cooking.

If you want to cook more, you can saute any vegetables you want to add. Mushrooms, red peppers, zucchinis, onions, whatever. Enjoy!

[TheWanderingScholar]

Thanks for the cooking tips! I have been trying to cook more often as fast-food is really cutting into my food budget. And it is does not help that all on campus food-places are fast-food shops.

[vexed87]

This recipe meant I never needed to buy jars of tomato sauces again!

Simple veg ragu sauce;

sauteed 1 onion in saucepan,
add 1 tin of chopped or whole tomatoes, or passata
add 1 teaspoon each of thyme, basil, oregano and rosemary* + crushed chilli if you like a kick
add 2 garlic cloves chopped finely
add diced courgette, sliced peppers or sub with whatever you have.
splash of red wine if you have a bottle open**
simmer for 15-25 minutes.
season to taste.
add pasta plus grating of italian cheese.

*This is italian herb mix in the supermarket, don't buy it, individual herbs are more versatile!
** Great way to use unpalatable red wine, and it makes a big difference to the flavour.

[Did]

Anything from the Hazan family will sort you out.

But a basic recipe:

- quite a bit of olive oil in the pan (low fat era is over and condemned)
- cook one onion sliced thinly and salted in the pan for a couple of minutes
- put in some chopped bacon/pancetta, some chili flakes, and a couple of cloves of sliced garlic
- cook for 4 minutes or so
- put in a tin of tomatoes
- simmer till fat runs clear from the sauce when you drag a spoon across it
- pepper when serving.

[7Wannabe5]

Throw some frozen green peas in with elbow like pasta, saute onion and mushrooms in olive oil and butter, salt and generous pepper, add a little bit of flour, stir-stir-stir, dilute with milk to make sauce, stir in some strong cheddar and mustard, drain pasta and peas, mix together. (My S26 just called me the other day to get this recipe. Used to serve it with homemade cinnamon applesauce.)

Make some bean soup, add some thick noodles towards the end, top with balsamic vinegar and a dollop of sour cream.

The easy way to make homemade spatzle-ish noodles is beat 2 eggs, add 1.5 cups flour, .5 cups water, .5 teaspoon salt and .25 teaspoon baking powder. Then set a large pot of salted water or broth to boil. Use something like a wide-holed colander (not a sieve), quick fill it with the batter and hold it over the pot, and then use a large spoon to push the batter out through the holes in streams into the water. One sort of universal rule to remember if you are lazy, is that when you are working with flour, you can always use a drop-batter recipe rather than a roll-cut-form dough recipe. Might try these with well-seasoned bacon and greens or in chicken soup with carrots.

Anything you might combine as toppings on a pizza will also work on pasta, just use more of the sauce.

Cook penne or rotini like pasta, rinse with cold water, coat with a bit of olive oil. Toss with more-chopped-than-usual ingredients for any salad you like.

[KevinW]

IMO, the simplest, and arguably most classic, is the best olive oil you can afford, a dice of the freshest herbs you can find, and a pinch of salt.

Generic tomato pasta sauce is puréed cooked tomatoes plus "Italian seasoning" e.g. salt, oregano, basil, garlic, onion, and maybe a little red pepper. This is easy to make, but not necessarily economical because generic store-bought canned pre-seasoned sauce costs about as much as the component ingredients.

As others suggested, marinara, bolognese, and pesto are not too hard.

Alfredo is doable, but the combination of a large batch size and short shelf life makes it inconvenient unless you're cooking for a big group.

Caprese is another classic: excellent fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, olive oil, and a little salt.

Italian recipes are usually simple; they're more about selecting superb fresh ingredients and not ruining them, then they are about complicated technique and rules.

[saving-10-years]

I enjoy hummus stirred through pasta. Its easy to make from scratch (chickpeas bought tinned or pressure cooked, oil, garlic and tahini, which is often optional here depending on whether we have any) and I also eat it as a filling for baked potatoes and sandwiches or with crudities. Cooking for one - from what I recall - is often a pain if you can't then use up what you cooked. So hummus has plenty of multpurpose virtues. Also relatively ERE-frugal and healthy even if you have to buy a pot.

[peerifloori]

Spaghetti Omelet - 1 cup(ish) leftover spaghetti (plain or with sauce), 2 beaten eggs, some salt and hot sauce for taste, fry in as much oil as you like.

Pasta with beans is tasty.

Pasta salad is great for leftovers. Pasta + italian dressing (or oil + vinegar + seasonings) + whatever chopped veggies sound good (onion, black olive, celery, carrot, corn, chickpeas)

Couscous is even faster than pasta (just add boiling water + oil/butter/seasonings and let sit 5 minutes), but usually more expensive.

Instant polenta/grits is quite fast, too, and cheap in bulk. You can put sauce over it like pasta, or serve with veggies.

If you have access to Costco, you can make sauce cheap. A #10 can of tomato sauce is <$3, add garlic, oregano, basil and you've got a great basic sauce for days. Freeze the extras - in ice cube trays or quart size ziploc bags.

[TheWanderingScholar]

Spaghetti Omelet - 1 cup(ish) leftover spaghetti (plain or with sauce), 2 beaten eggs, some salt and hot sauce for taste, fry in as much oil as you like.

Pasta with beans is tasty.

Pasta salad is great for leftovers. Pasta + italian dressing (or oil + vinegar + seasonings) + whatever chopped veggies sound good (onion, black olive, celery, carrot, corn, chickpeas)

Couscous is even faster than pasta (just add boiling water + oil/butter/seasonings and let sit 5 minutes), but usually more expensive.

Instant polenta/grits is quite fast, too, and cheap in bulk. You can put sauce over it like pasta, or serve with veggies.

If you have access to Costco, you can make sauce cheap. A #10 can of tomato sauce is <$3, add garlic, oregano, basil and you've got a great basic sauce for days. Freeze the extras - in ice cube trays or quart size ziploc bags.

I pasta and red liver beans so I can try that.

[jennypenny]

I like cold pasta salads. You can basically add anything you would add to a salad to pasta and use the same dressing, which can be oil, oil and vinegar, or oil and some fruit (I like berries for dressings).

I mix cold pasta and tuna together. My family likes it mixed with mayonnaise. I like chopped pickles mixed in.

I like cold pasta with oil, blanched spinach, and a dash of nutmeg.

I like peanut sauce with pasta, hot or cold. You can make it with just peanut butter and soy sauce, but it tastes better with some garlic and a dash of citrus (lemon is good, but lime ok). Many people add brown sugar, but I think store-bought peanut butter is too sweet, so I don't add it. I sometimes add a little honey.

[jacob]

Sauce on the cheap?

If pouring stuff on top on pasta, I generally do the following:

1) Fry chopped red/green/yellow pepper, cubed zucchini, chopped onion in that order (just add what you have/want in THAT PARTICULAR ORDER"). Then add a can of chopped/diced tomatoes (no sauce). Add beans if you have/want them. Leftover minced meat too. If you started with fresh meat, do they after all the vegetables above but before the tomatoes. Just before serving, add spices.

2) Somewhat unhealthier. Onions, then beans, or meat. Move everything to the side of the pan. Put some eggs in the middle. Pour the whole thing on top of the pasta. This is full of fat, carbs, and proteins. It's not got for you unless you work/exercise hard. Lots of calories. Jusr before serving add spices. I find that adding spices at the last step to be most effective. I add the Italian combo (basil, oregano, thyme) or the Mexican one (ditto + chillies - thyme).

Ketchup and olives to taste. Hot sauce to. I recommend Dave's. You get skull-shaped key rings

GENERAL RULE: If it comes out of a can and has more than 5 listed ingredients (actually, more than 3) ... it's junk food! Always use the grandmother rule when it comes to cans!!

EXCEPTION TO THE RULE: I still buy Bush Beans and its OEM rip-offs. It's my lazy junk-food choice. I know it's pretty bad (there's a ton of sugar and salt in there which is why it tastes so good), so we don't make a habit out of it.

Insofar that my tastebuds are concerned whatever I make is much better than anything I've ever been served at a restaurant... because I've obviously optimized it to my particular taste over several years of experimentation.

[TheWanderingScholar]

Sauce on the cheap?

If pouring stuff on top on pasta, I generally do the following:

1) Fry chopped red/green/yellow pepper, cubed zucchini, chopped onion in that order (just add what you have/want in THAT PARTICULAR ORDER"). Then add a can of chopped/diced tomatoes (no sauce). Add beans if you have/want them. Leftover minced meat too. If you started with fresh meat, do they after all the vegetables above but before the tomatoes. Just before serving, add spices.

2) Somewhat unhealthier. Onions, then beans, or meat. Move everything to the side of the pan. Put some eggs in the middle. Pour the whole thing on top of the pasta. This is full of fat, carbs, and proteins. It's not got for you unless you work/exercise hard. Lots of calories. Jusr before serving add spices. I find that adding spices at the last step to be most effective. I add the Italian combo (basil, oregano, thyme) or the Mexican one (ditto + chillies - thyme).

Ketchup and olives to taste. Hot sauce to. I recommend Dave's. You get skull-shaped key rings

GENERAL RULE: If it comes out of a can and has more than 5 listed ingredients (actually, more than 3) ... it's junk food! Always use the grandmother rule when it comes to cans!!

EXCEPTION TO THE RULE: I still buy Bush Beans and its OEM rip-offs. It's my lazy junk-food choice. I know it's pretty bad (there's a ton of sugar and salt in there which is why it tastes so good), so we don't make a habit out of it.

Insofar that my tastebuds are concerned whatever I make is much better than anything I've ever been served at a restaurant... because I've obviously optimized it to my particular taste over several years of experimentation.

Actually my sustainability course had a lecture, which they talk about the "grandma" rule; if your grandma can't pronounce it or know what it is; it is probably junk food. And yeah, I am getting to a point when I actually eat fast-food, I usually find it disgusting. Especially McDonalds.

Now to start working on the sweets.

And when dicing should I just do an entire weeks worth on a Sunday?

@jennypenny: Cold pastas? Never heard of them.