Aglio e olio is sort of the quintessential “easy” sauce made of common pantry ingredients. Other than that you can’t go wrong with the four classic sauces of Lazio: cacio e pepe, carbonara, Alla gricia and amatriciana. They’re all sort of made of variations of the same few ingredients but require a lot of practice to make perfectly. Good luck.
I love a good white sauce! Make a roux, add some milk, and take it from there. I often chop up leftover meat and/or veggies to finish it off. Add some nice cheese for a good cheese sauce. Its a great blank slate for different spice and herb combos, never the same twice.
OK I have a sauce recipe for you but it’s less about the sauce and more about the pasta method, tbh.
“Drunken” pasta with white wine marinara is just amazing.
28 ounce can peeled Marzano tomatoes
1 can tomato paste
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 red onion, finely diced
2 large cloves garlic, minced
3 tbs olive oil
1 large sprig basil leaves
1 sprig rosemary
6 sprigs thyme
salt/pepper to taste
Box (cheap) Chardonnay
Pasta of choice
Place tomatoes in blender and puree, not too much
Saute onions and garlic in olive oil for two minutes
Add white wine and allow wine to cook down for three minutes
Add tomatoes to onions and garlic
Add spices to sauce and bury them in the sauce
Simmer on low for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally
Remove spices and discard
Add tomato paste and stir to incorporate
Cook pasta in a mixture of half/half chardonnay and water. Top pasta with marinara. Serve with garlic bread.
The flavor the wine imparts to the pasta is just amazing, seriously something that takes your pasta to a different level. Mangia!
An own discovery: Tomato purée with like a spoon of peanut paste.
Immediately makes it creamy and tastes really nice.
Obviously, you can substitute the tomato purée for tomato paste + water. And canned, diced tomatoes are quite fun, too, as you get a fruity bite every so often.
I’m guessing, peanut butter would work, too (tomatoes taste fruity with a pinch of sugar), but I’ve never tried it.
As for spices, some pepper, chili or (balsamico) vinegar works well.
The whole Italian spices are still good, especially basil. Or alternatively, you can add various vegetables, like you’d put in a soup.
When I’m feeling really lazy, I use a brick of cream of pumpkin soup as a sauce. I melt some butter in a pot, add some chopped garlic and let the garlic get soft, then add some rosemary, thyme and ground white pepper to the pot. If it’s dry herbs, I stir the herbs around for about a minute to wake up their flavors. Then I add the soup and let that get hot. Finally, I melt some grated Parmesan cheese in the sauce then add my cooked spaghetti. You can serve with more cheese if you want (I do, of course). It’s basically a heat up some ingredients in a pot and add cooked pasta. It’s even easier if you have some leftover, plain, cooked spaghetti already on hand in the fridge.
Carbonara is probably a go-to if you’re trying to impress. A real tasty classic that’s also deceptively easy.
A ragu bolognese is also really great — either beef or if you’re wanting to mix it up with some Italian sausage (or pork mince with fennel and sage). If you have more time you can turn that into a lasagne.
I usually find pasta is one of those things that I’ll just chuck what I have on hand in. If I have some cream then that with some shallots, white wine, tarragon and a squeeze of lemon. If I have veggies that need using then chop them up and do a tomato base — onion, corgette, pepper… all so good!
I like the very poor and lazy student greatness of peanut butter pasta. It takes barely longer than cooking the pasta themselves, the ingredients are almost all shelf stable and staples in my pantry… it’s great for lazy cooking honestly. Okay, the recipe:
cook pasta (however you like, I’m no pasta police)
in a bowl, mix peanut butter with some soy sauce and vinegar (whichever brand/style/color you have at hand, we are being lazy here okay) the result can become a weird dense and sticky paste with a really deep soy sauce color and taste too strong to be good, do not panic, it’s not finished yet.
when the pasta is done, keep some of the pasta water and add it to the sauce, the sauce should now start to look good and taste much better.
laziest option is to throw the pasta on top of the sauce and use only one bowl. If the sauce is too liquidy, you can reheat the hole thing a bit.
No need to add salt, it’s already in the pasta water and soy sauce. Add whatever spicy thing you like, that works well. I wouldn’t recommend adding cheese to it, I was never really successfull with it.
Half an onion, minced Knob of butter 1 L of a good passata Tablespoon of chicken bouillon powder Olive oil to taste Salt, pepper, chili flakes to taste
Sauté the onion in butter until translucent. Add in the passata and bouillon powder. Add olive oil and seasonings to taste. That’s it.
The recipe is sort of a mishmash of influences. It derives from an ancestral recipe, but the use of butter comes from Marcella Hazan, and the bouillon powder from Hong Kong influence. It’s a salt and MSG umami bomb, what’s not to like?
I usually use a garlic press because I don’t find that the extra time I use cutting the garlic adds any different flavour. Though, sometimes I do chop it up if I am frying since I love crispy garlic.
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