Pasta has a lot to offer: it’s inexpensive, filling, ready in minutes, keeps in the cupboard, pleases a crowd, and goes with an almost infinite variety of toppings.

These five recipes have all stood the test of time (and the test of dinner parties) and regularly make it onto my weekly meal planner. They’re all quick, easy and inexpensive, making them ideal for weeknight dinners.

They also reheat well if you’re partial to leftovers for lunch. If you’re keen to freeze them, it’s best to just freeze the sauce – pasta that’s been cooked to al dente and beyond often becomes mushy once thawed.

1. Chicken and Bacon Ragu

I invented this recipe in the final weeks of my undergraduate degree, when my flatmates and I were using up the contents of our cupboards so that none of us had to take tinned tomatoes home on the train.

It was so quick, easy and delicious that I wrote the recipe down, and I still cook it regularly.

It’s nicest if you cook both the bacon and the chicken fresh, as the flavour from the meats enhances the sauce – but it’s also a great way to use up any cooked chicken leftover from a roast. 

Ingredients (To serve approximately 4)

• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 cooked chicken breast, shredded
• 2 rashers of smoked bacon, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 400g can tinned tomatoes
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 2 generous teaspoons sun-dried tomato paste (or, 2-3 finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes)
• 1 lamb or beef stock cube
• Pinch dried rosemary
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Pasta for 4 – I particularly like serving this sauce with conchiglie, because each piece of pasta works like a little bowl for the chunky sauce. 

Method

Fry the onion, garlic and bacon in a heavy-based saucepan or frying pan until the bacon is cooked and the onions are becoming clear. Add the tinned tomatoes, tomato puree and sundried tomatoes, and stir.

Crumble in a beef or lamb stock cube, then leave the sauce for five minutes on a low heat to thicken before adding the shredded chicken.

Leave for a further 2-3 minutes to heat the chicken through, then add a pinch of dried rosemary, and salt and pepper to taste. 

2. Chicken, Bacon and Pesto Pasta

This is another dish where it’s nicest to cook both meats from scratch, but nevertheless works perfectly well with leftover cooked chicken, or leftover gammon in the place of bacon.

You can easily leave the mushrooms out if you find yourself in the company of someone who doesn’t like them.

Don’t skimp on the pesto, but if you do find you haven’t used a whole jar and don’t want it going off in the fridge, you can freeze the remainder in ice cube trays for a future date. 

Ingredients (to serve approximately 6)

• 3 cooked chicken thighs, shredded
• 4 rashers bacon, chopped into bite-size pieces
• 300g mushrooms, chopped (chestnut mushrooms are nicest)
• 1 small (190g) jar green pesto 
• 200g tub of cream cheese (low fat and full fat both work)
• Splash of milk
• Pasta for 6 (tagliatelle is particularly good!)
• Bag of spinach 

Method

In the base of a large saucepan or hob-safe casserole dish, over a medium to high heat, fry the bacon in a small amount of olive oil until cooked, then add the mushrooms and cook until softened – altogether, about 5 minutes.

Into the moisture, add cooked chicken, the tub of cream cheese, 2-3 loaded tbsp of pesto and a splash of milk. Allow this to cook for another 2-3 minutes.

Then stir in the cooked pasta along with a small amount of the cooking water from the pasta, before adding the bag of spinach and stirring again. Once the spinach has cooked down – which will take 1-2 minutes – the dish is ready to serve. 

If reheating, add a small splash of water to the portion to help prevent the pasta from becoming claggy.

3. Prawn and White Wine Pasta

Possibly the quickest pasta dish in my repertoire, this recipe works particularly nicely with linguine, and benefits from the use of fresh lemon juice.

And if you find yourself with the rest of the bottle of wine going spare, perhaps that isn’t the worst thing. 

Ingredients (to serve approximately 2)

• Linguine for 2
• 25g butter
• 200g cooked, fresh prawns (king prawns are the nicest!) 
• 2 crushed garlic cloves
• 100ml dry white wine
• Squeeze of fresh lemon juice (concentrated lemon juice also works, but doesn’t have quite such a fresh flavour)
• Handful of roughly chopped flat leaf parsley

Method

While the pasta is cooking, melt the butter over a medium heat in a large frying pan. Add the garlic and cook for one minute, before adding the wine and cooking for a further minute.

Add prawns and cook for thirty seconds before immediately adding the cooked linguine and a splash of its cooking water (the prawns will become tough if you cook them for too long).

Remove from the heat, adding the lemon juice and parsley, plus salt and pepper to taste.

While this dish does reheat well, make sure you do so thoroughly – poorly reheated seafood isn’t much fun. 

4. My Twist On Bolognese

Much as I don’t want to teach anyone’s grandmother to suck eggs, the joy of having portions of Bolognese in the freezer ready to whip out after a busy day is such that I’m sharing my take on it.

I’m not here to get political about what should or shouldn’t go in a Bolognese sauce – we’d be here too long, and I’ve got pasta to eat. But I am promising that this one is quick, easy, filling and versatile. 

Traditionally, Bolognese sauce is made with red wine. I’m not a big red wine drinker, and resented having to fork out for a bottle every time I wanted to make a spag bol.

So I substituted the wine for balsamic vinegar one day, and my life was forever changed. The sharpness of the vinegar offsets the sweetness of the carrots and, I think, makes for a more satisfying midweek meal. 

Ingredients (for 8-9 medium portions)

• 1 pack (250g) beef mince (turkey and pork mince also work well, as do fresh vegetarian alternatives – frozen Quorn or mince can turn out a bit rubbery). 
• 2 small onions (see preparation tip)
• 2 cloves garlic (see preparation tip)
• Tin of chopped tomatoes (if you want the batch to stretch even further, go for 2 tins and add another tbsp of tomato puree)
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 2 large carrots (see preparation tip)
• Generous handful of dried red lentils
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• Dash of Worcestershire sauce
• Beef stock cube
• Mixed herbs (or, parsley, oregano and rosemary)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Spaghetti to serve

Method

Preparation tip: The trick to my Bolognese is to prepare all of the chopped ingredients – carrots, onions and garlic – in a food processor so that they’re cut super fine and all to the same size. Blitz the garlic and onions first, and while they’re cooking, do the carrots. The vegetables release more flavour because of the greater surface area to volume ratio, and this process also speeds up both chopping and cooking time.

In a hob-safe casserole dish, fry the mince in a small amount of olive oil. Once it’s browned, add the diced onions and garlic, and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.

Now add the tinned tomatoes and tomato puree. Once these are bubbling over a medium heat, add the carrot and the lentils and stir (don’t put the heat up too high from now on, or the lentils are liable to stick to the base of your pan). 

Stir in the balsamic vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, a crumbled beef stock cube, herbs, and salt and pepper to taste. Then step back and leave it cooking over a low heat for at least ten minutes, so that the flavours have time to mature a little.

That’s good time to get your spaghetti cooking, along with any garlic bread. Serve with grated parmesan.  

This freezes brilliantly, but I recommend reheating it in a saucepan over a low heat if you’ve got time, rather than in the microwave – it means the sauce is less likely to separate, so it doesn’t get as runny. 

5. Sausage and sun dried tomatoes

This final recipe is one of the best things to come out of my months in lockdown.

Initially I went through the motions of removing the skins from the sausages, but nowadays I don’t bother – I either buy skinless sausages (like Richmonds) or just leave the skins on, with very little discernible difference in the final product.

I buy sun dried tomatoes preserved in oil, and love using that oil to cook this dish up – it adds extra flavour.

Ingredients (to serve approximately 6)

• 8 sausages, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 large or 2 small onions, diced
• 2 to 3 sun dried tomatoes, finely chopped
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 lamb stock cube
• 3 spoonfuls of cream cheese
• ½ teaspoon each of dried oregano and rosemary 
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Pasta for 6 – I like this one with penne, because it resists getting clumped together

Method

In a heavy saucepan or frying pan, fry the pieces of sausage until cooked. Add the onions and cook until they soften. Stir in the sundried tomato, chopped tomato and tomato puree, before adding the lamb stock.

Cook for approximately 5 minutes over a medium heat. Turn the heat down low before stirring through the cream cheese, and adding the herbs, garlic powder and seasoning. Add the cooked pasta to the sauce, stir, and cook for 1 minute over a low heat. 

I like this one with penne, because it resists getting clumped together, making it especially amenable to quick working lunches. 

Bonus: Carbonara

I’ve long been on the hunt for a perfect carbonara recipe, and last year I think I finally found it in the Pasta Evangelists cookbook – Perfect Pasta at Home.

I won’t reproduce it here – they deserve their copyright – but I will vouch for it being quick, easy, delicious and immensely comforting. They recommend using guanciale, which isn’t the easiest thing in the world to get hold of – but I think pancetta or even leftovers from a roast gammon work brilliantly.

Use the spare egg whites to make an egg-white omelette or, better yet, meringue (you can freeze egg whites and defrost them, and they still whip up into a beautiful pavlova). 

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