Low Effort Pasta Recipes for Lazy Spring Dinners

My most shameful secret as a recipe developer is that I don’t really care about pasta. Yes I know. It’s delicious and easy, but I’m much more rice or bread. Obviously, this is not a popular opinion, which often earns me silent stares when I choose to share it openly at dinner parties.

That said, the reason I don’t make them often at home is that, much like the typical cook, I fall into a rut where I make the same sauces over and over again, and sometimes I just don’t want to make another sauce for pasta.

That’s why when I come across new pasta recipes that are thankfully simple and don’t call for a sauce, I cling to them more than a sauce to pasta that hasn’t been diluted with water yet. cooking water (super-niche pasta humor, excuse me).

One such recipe is Pasta with Candied Tomatoes and Ricotta from my friend Alexis deBoschnek’s new cookbook “To the Last Bite”, in which DeBoschnek slowly tosses roasted cherry tomatoes with pasta and a few dollops of ricotta – and that’s all. It’s so simple that I hardly have to think of anything but boiling the pasta. I feature this recipe, and another for Bright Crispy Carrot Ribbon Salad, in my review last week of DeBoschnek’s book.

Along those same lines, here are some other recipes that are so easy to make a laugh out of when you just want a few tasty ingredients to whip up a satisfying bowl of pasta.

Maria Zizka’s Midnight Pasta couldn’t be simpler, golden pasta with nothing more than garlic, pine nuts and capers lightly warmed in olive oil. Dawn Perry’s Garlic Chili Pasta and Toasted Breadcrumbs uses the same formula, but adds nutritious greens to the mix, which wilt in seconds while the pasta cooks and crispy bread crumbs to die for. not jump. in the oven.

And if you have a lemon, a handful of mushrooms, and a bag of frozen broccoli lying around, you can make my Caramelized Lemon Pasta with Mushrooms and Broccoli, which lets the citrus do all the flavor work.

Confit tomato and ricotta pasta

Tomato confit is great on just about anything — topped with pizza, piled on charred sourdough, swirled in creamy polenta — but it’s especially good tossed into pasta with heaps of ricotta.
Get the recipe.
Cooking time: 20 minutes, plus 2 hours, mostly unattended, for tomatoes.

midnight pasta

Spaghettata, a piping hot feast of pasta cooked at home late at night, often after you’ve returned from the bar, is perfect when you’re hungry and not quite ready for bed. Substitutions abound in this recipe. Instead of capers, try using another small salty ingredient like olives or anchovies. Replace the pine nuts with a rich, buttery ingredient like chopped walnuts or grated hard cheese.
Get the recipe.
Cooking time: 20 minutes.

Garlic and Chili Pasta with Toasted Breadcrumbs

Super crispy homemade bread crumbs – made from the last bits of a leftover loaf – elevate this simple pasta dish, bursting with garlic-spiced greens. Any pasta is suitable for this dish, but short, tubular shapes are ideal for catching all those bread crumbs and tasty cheeses.
Get the recipe.
Cooking time: 30 minutes.

Caramelized lemon pasta with mushrooms and broccoli

Vegetarian and nutritious, this pasta dish gets all its zest from tangy caramelized lemon. To make it vegan, just replace the parmesan with a nutritional yeast shake at the end.
Get the recipe.
Cooking time: 45 minutes.