Spaghetti. Aline Ponce / Pixabay.com / 2016 / CC0 1.0
Most informed cooks know that in Italy, pasta is typically a small dish served at the start of a meal as a first course, to take the edge off your hunger. Outside Italy, however, it has evolved into a main-course ingredient.
Consider experimenting with adding whole-grain pastas into your repertoire. It’s evolved a long way since its early days, and can provide a real nutrition boost.
See also: Pasta (main entry)
This is a hearty take on Pasta Carbonara, with peas added to boost the protein and add interest.
A really good baked pasta dish, very flavourful and hearty.
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A good hearty baked pasta dish, with veggies in it.
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A really good baked pasta dish, with veggies in it.
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A very easy sauce to make.
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Squash stuffed with couscous — very nice!
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A grown-up’s macaroni and cheese!
This recipe is even better with wholewheat pasta. The flavour really rounds out that of the broccoli and chickpeas.
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A very satisfying couscous dish.
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Making pesto is absolutely no work if you have a food processor.
Delicious eggplant rollups with cheese and mushrooms inside, and baked in a tomato sauce. The eggplant comes out fully cooked and yummy.
This is the authentic recipe used by Alfredo Restaurant in Rome, and as you will see, there is no added Alfredo sauce. The pasta ends up tasting creamy just from the three ingredients used.
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A very flavourful and colourful gnocchi dish.
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No one needs to know there’s grape jelly in their spaghetti sauce — until after dinner.
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Feel free to vary the veg in the recipe according to what you have on hand or what looks good at the store. Bear in mind, though, that the idea is to end up with veg in the pasta that have some crunch to them to give it interest.
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A very tasty, multiple layers of flavour couscous recipe.
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Especially nice with wholewheat linguine.
Yummy macaroni & cheese for grown-ups, with a crumbled potato chip topping. Very morish.
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Here’s a pesto that uses parsley — great for using up leftover bunches in the fridge. Takes 10 minutes to make including clean-up, and you can toss it into the freezer using the pesto ice-cube trick and you’re set for a couple of good meals out of what wo
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You will probably want to use fresh parsley as it is a featured item. Use whatever quantities you wish.
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The cabbage makes for a hearty, and healthy, pasta dish.
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The roasted cauliflower adds a depth of flavour and texture to this dish.
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Dead easy!
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A very easy to make and rich tasting sauce — it’s basically all melted cheese!
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A very sophistic, full of flavour pasta dish, and very good for you.
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The taste of sage and walnut together in a pasta sauce is rich and satisfying.
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You can serve this warm or piping hot. Use whatever kind of sausage you please, mild or spicy, but do use big ones — not breakfast size sausages or Chipoltas.
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The flavours in this dish explode out of your pasta bowl.
A very simple pasta dish to make, flavoured by lightly by anchovies and pine nuts. It’s very tasty if you are an anchovy fan.
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This Indian style polenta can be served with Indian food, or with fish or chicken.
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A very, very morish dish. But go slowly at the table — those gnocchi are more filling that they first seem to be!
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A really great, tasty side dish when you just can’t face potato, rice or pasta again.
This combines all the great Italian flavours with the colours of the Italian flag: red, white and green.
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A full-flavoured pasta dish that can be served warm, or chilled as a pasta salad.
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A rich, gutsy pasta dish.
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A very nice pesto. No one needs to know it’s also a particularly healthy recipe.
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The watercress in this recipe makes the pesto particularly nutritious and lends it a peppery taste. The rocket (aka Arugula) leaves lend depth with mildly bitter tones.
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Most recipes for whole wheat pasta draw on it because of its alleged health values. This recipe actually draws on it instead for its taste! The sauce stands up to well to the whole wheat pasta and the gutsy tastes really go together.