How To Make a One-Pot Pasta with Any Ingredients

There’s no mystery why one-pot recipes are big hits with home cooks: they’re low on dishes and effort, but big on flavor. But here’s a secret: you don’t need to stick to a set-in-stone recipe to make one of these ultra-simple dishes—really! We’ve cracked the code on how to build a one pot pasta that uses up ingredients you have on hand, with no trip to the store necessary.

The Framework:

For a one pot pasta dinner, you need 1 to 1 1/4 pounds of protein, 1 1/2 to 2 cups of long-cooking vegetables, 1 container (32 oz) Progresso chicken broth, either 1 can (14.5 oz) Muir Glen organic fire-roasted crushed tomatoes or 1 cup of heavy cream and 12 ounces of pasta, 1/2 to 1 cup of short-cooking vegetables, and your choice of extras like cheese, herbs and panko bread crumbs.

Here’s how to put it all together:

The Ingredients

Whenever you’re craving a hearty pasta dinner, gather up your choice of the following ingredient types:

• Cooking fat: Olive oil, butter, vegetable oil, bacon fat
• Protein: Sausage, chicken thighs or breasts, extra-lean ground beef, ground pork
• Long-cooking vegetables: Onion, bell peppers, broccoli, carrots, the white part of green onions
• Cooking liquid: Broth, plus one of the following—crushed tomatoes, heavy cream
• Pasta: Short shapes like penne, elbow, fusilli, cavatappi, gemelli, farfalle, ziti
• Short-cooking vegetables: Baby spinach, baby kale, arugula, frozen peas, frozen corn, frozen edamame, canned beans, canned crushed tomatoes, jarred vegetables like artichokes, roasted bell peppers, pimientos, olives
• Toppings/Stir-ins: Herbs, cheese, Panko bread crumbs

The Method

Once you’ve got your ingredients gathered, it’s time to get cooking. Use these guidelines that apply no matter what’s going in the pot:

1. Brown your selected protein in 1 to 2 tablespoons of cooking fat with salt and pepper.
2. Add your selected long-cooking vegetables and cook until they’re browned and/or softened.
3. Stir in your broth, additional liquid and pasta. Simmer and stir often until the pasta is cooked through and the sauce thickens.
4. Stir in your short-cooking vegetables and cheese and herbs if using.
5. If using panko bread crumbs, top the finished pasta with them, without stirring them in.

Need-to-Know Tips

Familiarize yourself with these tips and you’ll be on your way to making foolproof one-pots every time:

• Stirring is crucial, especially toward the end of cooking, when the cooking liquid has reduced into a sauce. If you don’t keep stirring, the sauce can stick and burn.
• Using extra-lean ground beef (at least 90% lean) is a good idea because you won’t need to drain oil from a hot, heavy pot.
• Smaller pasta shapes generally perform best in one-pot pastas. Spaghetti or fettuccine can work too, but we advise breaking them in half before adding; they’ll be easier to incorporate.
• Angel hair pasta is too delicate for one-pot pastas—it ends up gummy.
• For one-pot pastas, the pasta cooks in a flavorful liquid and thickens it as well. The cooking liquid turns into a sauce, so there’s no need to drain the pasta!

We created two one-pot pastas using this framework as a guide. If you’re more comfortable cooking from a failsafe recipe, give these a try!