For all the Italian food lovers out there, pasta is indeed the perfect comfort food. It comes in unlimited shapes, sizes and offers you different sauce options as well. You will be surprised to know that there are more than 600 shapes of pasta with around 1300 names.
Be it red sauce, white sauce or pink sauce, you can make your favourite pasta in less than 30 minutes. Add loads of vegetables to the pasta to spruce up its health quotient.
Here is how you can cook a perfect pasta bowl with three different sauce options.
Boil the pasta
Firstly, pick the pasta of your choice and boil it in salt water for 10-15 minutes. Add a spoon of oil to the water to ensure the pasta doesn’t become sticky. You can use penne, ravioli, fusilli, farfalle, macaroni, spaghetti or any other pasta variant. Once cooked, drain the water, pour some cold water on it and then set the pasta aside for later usage.
Red Sauce Pasta
Ingredients required- 250-gram boiled penne pasta, 4 cloves garlic, 2 teaspoon basil, 2 pinches powdered black pepper, 4 large tomatoes, 1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes, 1 tablespoon olive oil and salt as per taste.
Method-
- Heat olive oil in a pan and add chopped garlic cloves. Saute for a minute.
- Now add pureed tomatoes, salt and chilli flakes. Cook for 8-10 minutes. You can add some water to maintain consistency.
- Once the sauce is cooked, add the boiled pasta and mix gently. Add black pepper powder and fold it well. Ensure that each piece of pasta is coated well with the sauce. Let it cook for 2-4 minutes more.
- Garnish with basil leaves and serve.
Tip- You can add onions, capsicum, mushroom and corn to the pasta to amp up the taste.
Ingredients required- 250 gm boiled penne pasta, 4 garlic cloves, 1 chopped red bell pepper, 1 chopped capsicum, ½ cup boiled sweet corn, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 tablespoon refined flour, 1 cup milk, 1 teaspoon oregano, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 2 pinches black pepper powder and salt as per taste.
Method
Heat oil in a pan, add chopped garlic, capsicum, red bell pepper and sweet corn. Saute all the veggies for 5-6 minutes. Once done, set aside for later usage.
- Now heat butter in a pan and add refined flour to it. Use a whisk or a fork and keep stirring it. Once the colour changes from white to golden, add ½ cup milk to it. You might notice some lumps as soon as your pour the milk but don’t worry. Keep stirring it continuously and the lumps will dissolve.
- Once the mixture thickens, add the leftover milk and stir. Add oregano and black pepper powder to the sauce. Cook for 1 more minute till the consistency is medium.
- Now add the veggies to the pasta along with boiled pasta. Sprinkle salt as per taste and combine everything together. Your white sauce pasta is now ready to be served.
Tip- You can add broccoli, yellow bell pepper and carrots to the pasta as well.
For pink sauce pasta, all you need to do is mix red sauce and white sauce together. This will give you a beautiful pink coloured sauce, to which you can add boiled pasta of your choice.
The best thing about the pink sauce is that it can be customized as per your taste. You need not mix the red and white sauce in an equal ratio. If you like red sauce more, then you can add more of it and less of white sauce and vice versa.
Some essential tips
Salt your water- Always add some water to the water while boiling your pasta in order to ensure that the cooked pasta doesn’t have a bland taste. You can add ½ tsp or 1 tsp of salt, depending on the quantity of pasta.
Don’t overcook- Cook your pasta for 10 minutes and then check whether it has been properly cooked or not. You can do so by taking out a piece of pasta and checking it by breaking it with a spoon. If it hasn’t cooked fully, then boil it for another 2-4 minutes. Never overcook the pasta as it can slump down and might break when you add it to your veggie mixture.
Pour ice cold water- Once your pasta has boiled, take it out it in a colander or a large strainer. Pour a whole bottle of cold water all over it. This stops the cooking process and ensures that the pasta doesn’t stick to each other.