Make any pasta using this easy one-pot technique
A year of quarantine cooking. A year of solo grocery store runs. A year of searching for yeast.
A delicious year nonetheless.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the kitchen over the past 12 months, which has resulted in new regular weeknight favourites, some exciting ingredient discoveries and a whole lot of Tik Tok hacks. Does anyone remember the Dalgona coffee craze? The feta pasta preoccupation left cheese shelves empty in grocery stores, while sushi bakes enticed those who’ve been hesitant to try raw seafood.
I baked bread for the first time, had afternoon tea in my backyard, made daal from scratch and ate so many pots of pasta I’m basically walking rigatoni.
Last year around this time, my husband and I were still hopeful the global pandemic would all blow over in time for our trip to Italy in June (ha!). I had been brushing up on my Italian on Duolingo every day for our return trip to Tuscany, following Italian Instagrammers and was even researching the regional varieties of pasta dishes.
Our ill-conceived optimism led to fights over airline ticket refunds and an indefinite pause on the trip to Italy. I sat at home last summer, the Duolingo app deleted, green with envy while I watched on social media as pasta was tossed with fresh ingredients in ceramic bowls in rural Italy. But the pasta dishes kept flying out of my kitchen, and I learned some great recipes from those Italian chefs, cooks and influencers.
The simplest tip wasn’t really a recipe, but a staple at the Italian dinner table: how to cook a straightforward bowl of pasta and vegetables. You boil them together in one pot, then toss with olive oil and parmesan and, voila, an uninvolved yet filling dish that you can riff on in a million different ways, just like the Italians do.
One day, you can toss in some asparagus with your penne and season it with pecorino romano and black pepper. Another day, it’s rigatoni with snow peas and maybe some crispy bacon thrown in at the last second. Maybe you’ve got some anchovies or sardines, roasted red peppers or a jar of black olives hiding in the back of the fridge. The magic is in that salty pasta-veg water that emulsifies when it’s tossed with the cheese, olive oil and lemon juice to make a light yet creamy sauce.
This simple one-pot recipe is the light at the end of the tunnel for me. Spring veggies like asparagus or artichokes,
with bursts of lemon and a subtle hint of heat from the chili flakes, comfort me and help me get from one day to the next.
The days are getting longer, the sun is shining brighter and the vaccine numbers are growing. Toss those veg in with the pasta water.
One-pot Spring Vegetable Pasta with Lemon
This is a simple not-reallya-recipe that celebrates spring greens and champions the forever faithful box of dry pasta.
Ingredients:
500 grams of dry pasta like rigatoni, penne or elicoldali
500 grams broccoli, zucchini, asparagus or snow peas (whatever green veg you’ve got in the fridge or freezer)
1/4 cup of olive oil
Juice of one lemon
Red pepper flakes
1 cup grated parmesan, plus more for garnish
Fresh basil
Salt and pepper
Directions:
In a small bowl, mix olive oil, cheese, lemon juice and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Set aside.
Bring a large pot of wellsalted water to boil (like really salty — like the ocean)
Add the pasta and cook for five minutes, then add your greens to the pot and continue cooking to al dente, according to the pasta’s package directions.
Reserve one cup of pasta water, drain the pot, then toss in cheese mixture and stir vigorously while slowly adding the reserved pasta water, allowing the mixture to emulsify and make a sauce (you might not need the whole cup of pasta water). Add basil and stir well.
Portion out pasta and season with pepper and more grated parm. Serve immediately.