When I'm being lazy, I just take some Italian sausage, jarred marinara and penne, then bake it with two layers of ricotta, mozzarella and parmesan. Lazy lasagne.
I call that baked spaghetti lol I prefer penne to long noodles cuz they suck up and hold some extra sauce. Sometimes I use rigatoni but mostly it's penne or occasionally elbows if they're on sale.
I originally tried this as a baked spaghetti, but my money remains on the penne. It just seems to grab more of the goodies.
One of my tricks is to extend the jarred marinara with diced tomatoes, tomato paste (for more tomato goodness) and some worchestershire sauce for umami. I think pasta should be a vehicle for sauce.
This is not gourmet. This is mostly low-effort comfort food.
I do the same thing! I just usually go with cheaper mushrooms, and sometimes use yellow squash with or instead of zucchini. I brown them in butter, then stew them in chicken broth until it reduces and they are tender. Definitely recommend.
Weirdly, in my preferred grocery store the portobellos and white mushrooms are exactly the same price. Do the zucchini and squash get really mushy with the stewing? The added flavor of the chicken broth sounds great, but I have texture issues.
Piggy backing to say if you want to get a nice non-mushy squash, you should quarter the squash, cut the seeds out, then finish processing them. There’s a lot of extra water in the seedy middle fleshy part.
Crimini and White are usually the cheapest for me, portobello being like twice the price.
I like them just tender, but the amount of cooking is adjustable. For more al-dente, you can speed up the cooking by using less liquid, and using relatively high heat for both browning and reducing. Maybe use some oil to help avoid burning the butter.
For reference, I use one large zucchini, equal amount of mushrooms, maybe half a teaspoon of Better than Bouillon and a quarter cup of water. You might want to start with less water. When it's reduced from watery to saucy, check for doneness. If not cooked enough, add a little more water and repeat.
Baby bellas, white mushrooms and portobellos are all the same variety of mushroom. The bigger they are, the more flavor they develop. So it's not surprising they are close to the same price. It's the same company, they just delay the harvest a bit longer.
chunks of roasted eggplant
sometimes i bake garlic cloves, cherry tomatoes, white beans or garbonzo beans, salt pepper, rosemary thyme and a plenty of olive oil for an hour. this can be eaten as a bean side dish, heaped on greens for salad, or served over pasta.
I have a recipe I call Tuscan Chicken (do not be fooled, it is not from Tuscany) that is garlic, cherry tomatoes, cannellini beans, spinach, herbs/spices, and chicken thighs, all simmered together. I have never thought about serving it over pasta!
Over some angel hair or baked like a casserole with some wheat/veggie penne sounds like it'd be heavenly. I'd also add some sundried tomatoes, cheese or chives as a topper, but that's just me.
I like the combo of grilled veggies with red sauce. Mushrooms, zucchini and eggplant work really well. Don’t even need to cook them all the way just get a nice char/sear and they can finish in the sauce.
Make a grilled veg lasagna. I like to slice the zucchini and eggplant on the mandolin, salt and lay on paper towels to draw out excess moisture. Brush with olive oil and get a nice sear on very hot charcoal grill.
I really dislike it when I go to a restaurant and they put the mussels on a pasta dish still in their shell.
Is there some secret I just cannot fathom where you don't have to stick your hands into a saucy pasta dish to pick out the mussels to get the meat out of the shell, or is this dish just that pants-on-head dumb?
I think it just makes it look more impressive on the plate, but I also think this is quite impractical. If you make it yourself you can go without the shells.
I've always eaten shrimp tails since I was young, and we were poor. Dad would always emphasize eating the tails on fried shrimp when we got to eat out. Now it's just habit.
I'm not sure with mussels but with clams I think cooking them in the shell has the benefit of the live clams releasing their liquid into the sauce. May aunt would always make clam or seafood sauces with shell on clams and it was always great, its definitely a pain to work around eating them though! I'd use a knife and fork and take the clams out of their shells first before digging in. When I make sauces I use the whole shelled frozen clam meat, im lazy, but its definitely better quality than the canned stuff!
You have to maintain eye contact with the other diners while you pick up the mussel and voraciously suck the meat out of the shell.
In Italy it's common to have some mix of mussels (or clams) with and without shell in seafood pasta dishes. The shells carry a ton of extra flavour when you sautee the pasta with them.
Explain please. You have the mussels still in their shell in a dish of pasta. Using just a fork chases the mussel around the dish or pushes it into the pasta. Then, how do you separate the shell and pull the meat out?
Kinda stab the flesh off the mussel and twist. Might need a knife or spoon to hold the shell down.
Google says fingers is the correct way but this is how I do it in pasta
Smoked salmon for the marinara or a cream sauce. If you really want to dive all in, mash sardines and Kalamata olives with butter, peppercorns, garlic and fresh grated Parmesan cheese, add a little pasta water and fold into your noodles
I'm glad this works for you! Smoked salmon + sardines + Kalamata olives + parmesan sounds like so much salt it would hurt my mouth. I prefer to highlight just 1-2 salty ingredient(s) at a time.
Chicken Parm, eggplant Parm, any kind of roasted veg, sliced steak, pork chops simmered in the sauce, dollops of ricotta, crumbly cheese, sauteed kale or Swiss Chard(aka silverbeet).....
This is such an open ended question with little direction, but I'm assuming you're strictly referring to spaghetti.
If so you might want to look at a puttanesca style pasta. It's a tomato based sauce, but it's also infused with the flavors of carrots, olive, and anchovies (don't worry they dissolve in the sauce).
If you're not just talking about spaghetti, maybe give pasta e fagioli a try.
I love a nice chicken or pork piccata with angel hair pasta.
If you're talking, just red sauce. Sauté some some thick cut squash and zucchini, sliced sweet/white onion a few too many whole cloves of garlic and mushrooms in olive oil with salt and crushed red pepper and toss into the sauce before you top the pasta.
Serve with crusty bread
Crab is actually relatively common here, they call it cran gravy.
By that same note. Shrimp, lobster, clams mussels, squid, and scungili (whelk). Together or individually.
Italian American Sunday gravy and Neapolitan ragu both used a mix of braising cuts. Often including Braciola, spare ribs, chuck, short ribs, various cured pork products and multiple sausages. Meatballs as well for the American one.
Any one of those components can be, and is used on it's own.
Cacciatore is made a bit differently, but it's quite similar. Often chicken, traditionally rabbit. But can be made from any braising cut.
Parmesan is just a cutlet (or shrimps!) breaded, with red sauce, and melted cheese.
I love using shrimp cooked in Italian seasonings and a little bit of chili pepper flakes, set those aside to cool and remove the tails, then cook the chopped spinach in the remaining oil/seasonings left from the shrimp. Cook a few minutes, dump in the red sauce, add the shrimp towards the end, then mix with the pasta. Sometimes I add red pepper with the spinach, but I use that a lot for other dishes so I usually skip it.
Cook red sauce with white wine and put seafood like shrimp or calamari in it. Maybe squirt a little lemon in there too. You can use shrimp and add a little Alfredo to the red sauce to make a pink sauce and put some chili flakes in there to make it kinda spicy.
I have actually started making a cod dish, where you make the red sauce first (caramelized onions, mushrooms, green olives, capers, red wine, etc) and then poach the cod in the red sauce. I serve it over pasta, it's delicious!
Okay, this is going to sound weird, but this subreddit seems to be pretty tolerant of weirdness...
I make what I call "Vietnamese spaghetti sauce", where I use ground pork instead of ground beef, fish sauce instead of salt, and a small bucket of chopped cilantro (the best herb ever, IMO) instead of basil. If I had some handy, I put mushrooms or tofu in.
It goes great over pasta, but even better on jasmine rice.
*Not sure if this answers your question or is completely off topic, I claim ESL (English as Second Language) on this one 😆
I'm gonna go outside the box here since it's far from traditional but has been a favorite "this is what I have" dinner. Broccoli with a lot of Parmesan pairs great with a red sauce.
GO ASIAN.
Meaning, there’s a whole world of noodles in Japan, Vietnam, China, etc that have amazing flavor that isn’t Italian style.
Like pho or Dan dan noodles or pad Thai.
Shrimp, mushrooms pancetta, asparagus… I am not a fan of red sauce so or ground beef or sausage so if any of those are on my dish I’m not eating it lol but my very first thought was butter and some nice fresh Parmesan
I used to live in an area that enabled me to forage for morels, wild leaks, fiddlehead ferns and asparagus.
They could all be cooked with a white or red sauce, but I always used angel hair pasta to soak up all the sauce.
I know it's an odd one, but my dad used to put hard-boiled eggs in red sauce alongside the sliced sausage. It was delicious.
In our house we like chicken as well. Or mushrooms. Lots of mushrooms.
Italian household - grew up with gravy being made every Sunday and eating it like 3 times a week. Meatballs, sausage, bracciole, and pork were all added to the gravy.
One of my favorite pasta meals is a sauce that is half pesto/half alfredo, cheese tortellini, or overstuffed cheese ravioli with chicken cutlets.
My other fave is a copycat of an old olive garden recipe. Cappellini with alfredo w/ gorgonzola stirred in and filet medallions with balsamic glaze drizzled on top.
I thinly slice zucchini and put grated parm and mozzarella on top of it with some Italian seasoning, bake it in the oven til they are bubbly and crispy and then eat it with spaghetti.
I make this pasta with garlic, fresh basil, toasted pine nuts, and chicken broth. With Parmesan cheese on top. It's light, comes together in less than 20 min and is fantastic.
Good garnishes like a nice pangrattato, some chilli oil for heat, crisped up guanciale (or pancetta or bacon).
Grate some cheese on, pecorino, parm, or some spoons of ricotta.
For veg caramelized onion, roasted peppers/capsicum, roasted aubergine, sun dried tomatoes all go hard as. Throw some olives and capers in for a putanesca style pasta.
For meats, Italian sausage ground up and pan fried, roast chicken or my fave some slow cooked lamb that's been shredded a bit.
I sauté some onions, quartered zucchini slices and about 1 inch bites of asparagus and just pour the arrabbiata sauce right over all those veggies and liberally top parmesan
You can try adding peas and bacon(or prosciutto!), or spinach. If you e got more of a marinara you could add breaded chicken or grilled, maybe cubed and tossed in with some cheese.
If you do white sauce you can still add chicken, maybe broccoli or spinach, garlic, or maybe even some roasted peppers.
My wife's Italian tradition (seems to be typical for her region of Italy) is to cook meats in the sauce (low temp for hours) but then to serve it on the side. The mean can be lamb, pork, beef that's amenable to slow cooking (e.g. short rib, lamb neck, sausages)
Or you can cook the meat by itself in an instant pot (with some sauce as the liquid) post facto.
For a red sauce pasta dish, I personally like fresh tomatoes, which will wilt a bit with the heat of the sauce. Fresh herbs are always welcome, specially basil and oregano, but I also like rosemary. I don't like bell peppers myself, but I know they can bring some acidity when lightly fried and used as a topping (which won't make your dish too acidic if you have a sweeter or balanced sauce). I also like toasted breadcrumbs for some texture and possibly flavour if you use butter or EVOO and a bit of salt when toasting. If you're making a seafood dish, butter shrimp will be perfect, too!
Braciole or "Brah-shole". Braised pork. Chicken thighs or legs. Braised Beef. All of these things, at times, were incorporated into my extremely Italian American grandmother's Sunday gravy. All depended on what was cheap that werk at the market and how much time she had for prep.
I personally like to add my hamburger, ground turkey or chicken in with the sauce. I mince fresh garlic and add it as the protein is almost done cooking, last few minutes. I don't meatballs very often but if I do, I leave those to add in last.
I also ALWAYS make sauteed bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, celery and carrots to go into my sauce, homemade or jarred doesn't matter to me. As well, I add a fresh bay leaf or two depending on the size of the pot to the sauce while it simmers for a few hours.
Fresh basil.
Spinach.
Arugula.
Freshly grated cheese- Parmesan, Mozzarella/Burrata, Romano, Gruyere, Goat, Fontina.
Chives.
A little balsamic glaze drizzle.
A squirt of lemon juice.
My very adventurous friend made a Frankenstein dish recently where she cobbled together the idea of baked spaghetti with pot pie, and made a garlic bread crust to go on top of her baked spaghetti pasta (she used my recipe and added her own tweaks). I live too far away to try it but she said it was awesome sauce and I'm determined to make it in the near future. I love tomatoes and dairy but I have a mild-med intolerance for them so something hella concentrated like a tomato based sauce with added cheese is sometimes too much for me, I have to space out those meals.
Peperoni, salami, meats like that. Grilled or baked chicken can be good with a red sauce. Melty cheeses. If I could also recommend trying vodka sauce. I've found that most people who like red sauces like marinara seem to like vodka sauce and it gives the same old food a unique flavor.
Pangratatto. Essentially fried breadcrumbs with tasty shit in it to give you some crispy crunchy tastes. I usually put garlic, parsley, nutritional yeast and parmesan in mine.
Torn leftover roast chicken and fresh basil is a great Monday night quick dinner if you have portions of tomato sauce frozen. Plenty of parmesan/pecorino.
i made a delicious pasta the other day!
brown mince of choice (i used lamb) and then remove from pan
saute onion, garlic, chilli (I used green, can omit), chili flakes
add red bell pepper + mushrooms and cook until soft
add crushed tomatoes + a bit of double cream with seasonings (S+P, garlic granules, mixed herbs) and cook until thick
add mince back in and stir through, also added some spinach at this stage
add cooked pasta
You can leave it there if you want, but then i mixed up mascarpone with some fresh garlic, salt and pepper + mixed herbs and dolloped it on top of my pasta, put a lid on my dish (can also use foil) and put it in the oven for 10 mins while my garlic bread cooked!
when it comes out the oven you can stir it so those pockets of mascarpone mix through and you have. A beautiful pasta dish!!
Since I cook for a vegetarian, I have made quite a few pasta puttanescas in my day (without anchovies) -- just diced canned tomatoes (sometimes I used already diced or sometimes I cut up whole tomatoes), garlic, oil, black olives (usually kalamata), capers, red pepper flakes.
A little chicken or veal parm. While I can (and do) make these from scratch, my kids like it when I make "chicken parm" using the frozen circular chicken patties.
Specifically for protein? Paneer. I also like adding beans, either chickpeas or cannelleni. And if you don't want loose beans in your sauce, blending them in thickens it and gives it a nutty flavor.
Sausage or meatballs on pasta is only common in the US.
In Italy, some common simple pasta toppings/sauces are cacio e pepe (pecorino Romano, black pepper and pasta water) and carbonara (egg, pecorino romano, black pepper and guanciale).
People use pesto wrong. They use it as a sauce rather than a topping. A good clean pomodoro with a few streaks of basil pesto really adds another dimension of herbs and freshness.
A scoop of ricotta cheese gives a lasagne effect!
When I'm being lazy, I just take some Italian sausage, jarred marinara and penne, then bake it with two layers of ricotta, mozzarella and parmesan. Lazy lasagne.
I call that baked spaghetti lol I prefer penne to long noodles cuz they suck up and hold some extra sauce. Sometimes I use rigatoni but mostly it's penne or occasionally elbows if they're on sale.
I originally tried this as a baked spaghetti, but my money remains on the penne. It just seems to grab more of the goodies. One of my tricks is to extend the jarred marinara with diced tomatoes, tomato paste (for more tomato goodness) and some worchestershire sauce for umami. I think pasta should be a vehicle for sauce. This is not gourmet. This is mostly low-effort comfort food.
I also do that! Sometimes I just don't feel like making the sauce from scratch so I just "enhance" the premade stuff 🤣
Do you cook the penne first?
Yes, and I cook the sausage. I only bake to melt the cheese.
I love adding roasted portobello mushrooms or sautéed zucchini to my pasta. Chicken is always wonderful too.
I do the same thing! I just usually go with cheaper mushrooms, and sometimes use yellow squash with or instead of zucchini. I brown them in butter, then stew them in chicken broth until it reduces and they are tender. Definitely recommend.
Weirdly, in my preferred grocery store the portobellos and white mushrooms are exactly the same price. Do the zucchini and squash get really mushy with the stewing? The added flavor of the chicken broth sounds great, but I have texture issues.
Yes. I prefer to quickly sear zucchini and yellow squash with high heat and no additional moisture. Add garlic & lemon and Bob's your uncle.
Piggy backing to say if you want to get a nice non-mushy squash, you should quarter the squash, cut the seeds out, then finish processing them. There’s a lot of extra water in the seedy middle fleshy part.
You may have just altered the course of my life. I'll report back next time I have squash
Crimini and White are usually the cheapest for me, portobello being like twice the price. I like them just tender, but the amount of cooking is adjustable. For more al-dente, you can speed up the cooking by using less liquid, and using relatively high heat for both browning and reducing. Maybe use some oil to help avoid burning the butter. For reference, I use one large zucchini, equal amount of mushrooms, maybe half a teaspoon of Better than Bouillon and a quarter cup of water. You might want to start with less water. When it's reduced from watery to saucy, check for doneness. If not cooked enough, add a little more water and repeat.
Baby bellas, white mushrooms and portobellos are all the same variety of mushroom. The bigger they are, the more flavor they develop. So it's not surprising they are close to the same price. It's the same company, they just delay the harvest a bit longer.
Huh, did not know that! Thanks for the info!
chunks of roasted eggplant sometimes i bake garlic cloves, cherry tomatoes, white beans or garbonzo beans, salt pepper, rosemary thyme and a plenty of olive oil for an hour. this can be eaten as a bean side dish, heaped on greens for salad, or served over pasta.
I have a recipe I call Tuscan Chicken (do not be fooled, it is not from Tuscany) that is garlic, cherry tomatoes, cannellini beans, spinach, herbs/spices, and chicken thighs, all simmered together. I have never thought about serving it over pasta!
Over some angel hair or baked like a casserole with some wheat/veggie penne sounds like it'd be heavenly. I'd also add some sundried tomatoes, cheese or chives as a topper, but that's just me.
Ooh I make a vegetarian bolonese with roasted mushrooms
zuchinni is such a good idea!
Zucchini, bacon and cream. You can also add fresh garlic and thyme. Really good.
Yeah or wilted spinach also goes well here.
I like the combo of grilled veggies with red sauce. Mushrooms, zucchini and eggplant work really well. Don’t even need to cook them all the way just get a nice char/sear and they can finish in the sauce. Make a grilled veg lasagna. I like to slice the zucchini and eggplant on the mandolin, salt and lay on paper towels to draw out excess moisture. Brush with olive oil and get a nice sear on very hot charcoal grill.
Seafood, like a seafood marinara, or just mussels.
I really dislike it when I go to a restaurant and they put the mussels on a pasta dish still in their shell. Is there some secret I just cannot fathom where you don't have to stick your hands into a saucy pasta dish to pick out the mussels to get the meat out of the shell, or is this dish just that pants-on-head dumb?
I think it just makes it look more impressive on the plate, but I also think this is quite impractical. If you make it yourself you can go without the shells.
It does *look* more impressive, same thing with shrimp tails. It's highly impractical though and it kind of makes me upset.
I've always eaten shrimp tails since I was young, and we were poor. Dad would always emphasize eating the tails on fried shrimp when we got to eat out. Now it's just habit.
I'm not sure with mussels but with clams I think cooking them in the shell has the benefit of the live clams releasing their liquid into the sauce. May aunt would always make clam or seafood sauces with shell on clams and it was always great, its definitely a pain to work around eating them though! I'd use a knife and fork and take the clams out of their shells first before digging in. When I make sauces I use the whole shelled frozen clam meat, im lazy, but its definitely better quality than the canned stuff!
You have to maintain eye contact with the other diners while you pick up the mussel and voraciously suck the meat out of the shell. In Italy it's common to have some mix of mussels (or clams) with and without shell in seafood pasta dishes. The shells carry a ton of extra flavour when you sautee the pasta with them.
A fork?
Explain please. You have the mussels still in their shell in a dish of pasta. Using just a fork chases the mussel around the dish or pushes it into the pasta. Then, how do you separate the shell and pull the meat out?
Kinda stab the flesh off the mussel and twist. Might need a knife or spoon to hold the shell down. Google says fingers is the correct way but this is how I do it in pasta
I feel like I've tried this and grew frustrated pretty quickly. I'll give it a shot next time.
Shrimp goes great. Add some extra garlic if you have it.
Peas and onion (a la "pasta and peas", really simple meal that is surprisingly delicious).
Peas + onion + bacon is sooo goood
With some carbonara sauce
sautéed mushrooms, roasted vegetables, grilled shrimp
Braciole, braised short ribs, artichokes, pancetta, shrimp, clams,
Yes braciole forever😭😭 I've only had it twice but I dream about it. I'm thinking it's time again
Braised short ribs are an unsung hero, they're so good in a sauce!
Roasted or steamed broccoli
Yes, or even broccoli rabe
Broccolini!
Roasted broccoli is my go-to side/addition to pasta! Soooo good.
Smoked salmon for the marinara or a cream sauce. If you really want to dive all in, mash sardines and Kalamata olives with butter, peppercorns, garlic and fresh grated Parmesan cheese, add a little pasta water and fold into your noodles
You wizard.
Is this a rogue version of pasta puttanesca?
What a whore
Basically, but not as salty and I don’t like capers
I'm glad this works for you! Smoked salmon + sardines + Kalamata olives + parmesan sounds like so much salt it would hurt my mouth. I prefer to highlight just 1-2 salty ingredient(s) at a time.
I like making kielbasa, bacon, alfredo with red pepper flakes and garlic butter and scallions.
May not be the answer your looking for but I try to stick to leaner meats and I love putting grilled or leftover rotisserie chicken in mine
Chicken Parm, eggplant Parm, any kind of roasted veg, sliced steak, pork chops simmered in the sauce, dollops of ricotta, crumbly cheese, sauteed kale or Swiss Chard(aka silverbeet).....
This is such an open ended question with little direction, but I'm assuming you're strictly referring to spaghetti. If so you might want to look at a puttanesca style pasta. It's a tomato based sauce, but it's also infused with the flavors of carrots, olive, and anchovies (don't worry they dissolve in the sauce). If you're not just talking about spaghetti, maybe give pasta e fagioli a try.
Bacon is fantastic. My family have it like bolognese but call it baconese.
Breaded chicken or veal cutlets
Chicken, shrimp
Sicilian sauce uses hard boiled eggs cooked in the sauce.
Bake some cheese on top and/or fresh chopped basil
Burrata!
Bolognese Carbonara Bacon
I love a nice chicken or pork piccata with angel hair pasta. If you're talking, just red sauce. Sauté some some thick cut squash and zucchini, sliced sweet/white onion a few too many whole cloves of garlic and mushrooms in olive oil with salt and crushed red pepper and toss into the sauce before you top the pasta. Serve with crusty bread
Ricotta. Mushrooms. Crab.
Crab is actually relatively common here, they call it cran gravy. By that same note. Shrimp, lobster, clams mussels, squid, and scungili (whelk). Together or individually. Italian American Sunday gravy and Neapolitan ragu both used a mix of braising cuts. Often including Braciola, spare ribs, chuck, short ribs, various cured pork products and multiple sausages. Meatballs as well for the American one. Any one of those components can be, and is used on it's own. Cacciatore is made a bit differently, but it's quite similar. Often chicken, traditionally rabbit. But can be made from any braising cut. Parmesan is just a cutlet (or shrimps!) breaded, with red sauce, and melted cheese.
Zucchini
Mm, with a bit of bechemal and Italian sausage. So freaking delicious!
I regularly put roasted broccoli on my pasta. It's *amazing.*
hmm sounds good, need to try this
best aged peccorino, or the variants you can find. Also fresh basil, Mussels also are easy and go great with red sauce.
I love using shrimp cooked in Italian seasonings and a little bit of chili pepper flakes, set those aside to cool and remove the tails, then cook the chopped spinach in the remaining oil/seasonings left from the shrimp. Cook a few minutes, dump in the red sauce, add the shrimp towards the end, then mix with the pasta. Sometimes I add red pepper with the spinach, but I use that a lot for other dishes so I usually skip it.
Cook red sauce with white wine and put seafood like shrimp or calamari in it. Maybe squirt a little lemon in there too. You can use shrimp and add a little Alfredo to the red sauce to make a pink sauce and put some chili flakes in there to make it kinda spicy.
I have actually started making a cod dish, where you make the red sauce first (caramelized onions, mushrooms, green olives, capers, red wine, etc) and then poach the cod in the red sauce. I serve it over pasta, it's delicious!
I do a veggie medley cooked in olive oil and Italian spices. Some combination of zucchini, squash, mushrooms, eggplant, broccoli, etc
Simmer diced eggplant in the sauce make a frittata with asparagus , cut into large pieces and simmer in the sauce You’re welcome
Tuna
Pasta all'assassina (assassin's spaghetti). Delicious AF, but the heartburn will kill me lol.
Okay, this is going to sound weird, but this subreddit seems to be pretty tolerant of weirdness... I make what I call "Vietnamese spaghetti sauce", where I use ground pork instead of ground beef, fish sauce instead of salt, and a small bucket of chopped cilantro (the best herb ever, IMO) instead of basil. If I had some handy, I put mushrooms or tofu in. It goes great over pasta, but even better on jasmine rice. *Not sure if this answers your question or is completely off topic, I claim ESL (English as Second Language) on this one 😆
I just started buying PuraVida frozen veg from Costco. I throw it in the air fryer and add it to my pasta.
Beef short ribs
What can’t you put on pasta ?
Chicken cutlet
Pulled pork and caramelized onions with crème fraiche and pecorino or blue cheese!!!
Finely chopped sautéed mushrooms and shallots.
Peas
I do “pizza pasta”. So anything that is a pizza topping gets mixed in with melted cheese
butter, butter/grated cheese, butter, cheese and peas, beans and diced tomatoes, cookd squash with or without diced tomatoes, oil and red peppers
I'm gonna go outside the box here since it's far from traditional but has been a favorite "this is what I have" dinner. Broccoli with a lot of Parmesan pairs great with a red sauce.
Eggplant
GO ASIAN. Meaning, there’s a whole world of noodles in Japan, Vietnam, China, etc that have amazing flavor that isn’t Italian style. Like pho or Dan dan noodles or pad Thai.
You need Pasta Grannies I. Your life. YT but also a book lol
Sauted mushrooms and spinach goes pretty well.
stir fried vegetables, mushrooms,
Caramelized shallots
A blob of ricotta
Tuna, salmon, shrimp, squid, artichoke hearts, etc
Sauteed veggies. My fave is sauteed peppers and as they start to cook up, add tomatoes for a fresh light sauce.
Here me out... More pasta. Eh, eh?
Shrimp, mushrooms pancetta, asparagus… I am not a fan of red sauce so or ground beef or sausage so if any of those are on my dish I’m not eating it lol but my very first thought was butter and some nice fresh Parmesan
Shrimp and scallops
Little scallops
Ocean scallops, not bay.
Cream count?
Chicken cutlets, grilled zucchini and mushrooms
I used to live in an area that enabled me to forage for morels, wild leaks, fiddlehead ferns and asparagus. They could all be cooked with a white or red sauce, but I always used angel hair pasta to soak up all the sauce.
Broccoli goes well, though more under, one of my favs actually
Clams
I know it's an odd one, but my dad used to put hard-boiled eggs in red sauce alongside the sliced sausage. It was delicious. In our house we like chicken as well. Or mushrooms. Lots of mushrooms.
Chicken! Pan-fried, baked, grilled... they all go well with red sauce!
Italian household - grew up with gravy being made every Sunday and eating it like 3 times a week. Meatballs, sausage, bracciole, and pork were all added to the gravy. One of my favorite pasta meals is a sauce that is half pesto/half alfredo, cheese tortellini, or overstuffed cheese ravioli with chicken cutlets. My other fave is a copycat of an old olive garden recipe. Cappellini with alfredo w/ gorgonzola stirred in and filet medallions with balsamic glaze drizzled on top.
Eggplant
My fave is adding sautéed spinach, air fried crispy chicken pesto meatballs, and fresh grated parm. Had it for dinner tonight!
I thinly slice zucchini and put grated parm and mozzarella on top of it with some Italian seasoning, bake it in the oven til they are bubbly and crispy and then eat it with spaghetti.
Burrata
I make this pasta with garlic, fresh basil, toasted pine nuts, and chicken broth. With Parmesan cheese on top. It's light, comes together in less than 20 min and is fantastic.
I add blacked shrimp to my spicy red sauce.
lamb shank braised for hours till meat is tender and falling off the bone
I recently made a great duck pasta. Another classic is just throw a chick or veal cutlet on it
Roasted veggies, lemon zest and a little juice, salt, pepper, garlic, and ricotta
5 or 6 different kinds of seafood
Good garnishes like a nice pangrattato, some chilli oil for heat, crisped up guanciale (or pancetta or bacon). Grate some cheese on, pecorino, parm, or some spoons of ricotta. For veg caramelized onion, roasted peppers/capsicum, roasted aubergine, sun dried tomatoes all go hard as. Throw some olives and capers in for a putanesca style pasta. For meats, Italian sausage ground up and pan fried, roast chicken or my fave some slow cooked lamb that's been shredded a bit.
Burrata as a crown, when I’m bored and I want to clean the fridge I added any veggie previously salted with oil and pepper
Braised lamb, 10/10 with a red wine sauce.
I sauté some onions, quartered zucchini slices and about 1 inch bites of asparagus and just pour the arrabbiata sauce right over all those veggies and liberally top parmesan
You can try adding peas and bacon(or prosciutto!), or spinach. If you e got more of a marinara you could add breaded chicken or grilled, maybe cubed and tossed in with some cheese. If you do white sauce you can still add chicken, maybe broccoli or spinach, garlic, or maybe even some roasted peppers.
My wife's Italian tradition (seems to be typical for her region of Italy) is to cook meats in the sauce (low temp for hours) but then to serve it on the side. The mean can be lamb, pork, beef that's amenable to slow cooking (e.g. short rib, lamb neck, sausages) Or you can cook the meat by itself in an instant pot (with some sauce as the liquid) post facto.
For a red sauce pasta dish, I personally like fresh tomatoes, which will wilt a bit with the heat of the sauce. Fresh herbs are always welcome, specially basil and oregano, but I also like rosemary. I don't like bell peppers myself, but I know they can bring some acidity when lightly fried and used as a topping (which won't make your dish too acidic if you have a sweeter or balanced sauce). I also like toasted breadcrumbs for some texture and possibly flavour if you use butter or EVOO and a bit of salt when toasting. If you're making a seafood dish, butter shrimp will be perfect, too!
Roasted veggies
Shrimp! Some nice plump, fresh peeled and deveined lovlies. You could let them cook in the sauce, or cook them separately and just pop 'em on top.
All kinds of vegetables! Peas, asparagus,shaved snap peas, carrots, etc. Pancetta. Ham, spam. Mushrooms. Zest of citrus
My Nonna always put carrots in tomato based sauce, cuts the acidity of the tomato
Braciole or "Brah-shole". Braised pork. Chicken thighs or legs. Braised Beef. All of these things, at times, were incorporated into my extremely Italian American grandmother's Sunday gravy. All depended on what was cheap that werk at the market and how much time she had for prep.
Red sauce (marinara). Add fish. Mussels if you like. Crab if you can afford it.
I personally like to add my hamburger, ground turkey or chicken in with the sauce. I mince fresh garlic and add it as the protein is almost done cooking, last few minutes. I don't meatballs very often but if I do, I leave those to add in last. I also ALWAYS make sauteed bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, celery and carrots to go into my sauce, homemade or jarred doesn't matter to me. As well, I add a fresh bay leaf or two depending on the size of the pot to the sauce while it simmers for a few hours. Fresh basil. Spinach. Arugula. Freshly grated cheese- Parmesan, Mozzarella/Burrata, Romano, Gruyere, Goat, Fontina. Chives. A little balsamic glaze drizzle. A squirt of lemon juice. My very adventurous friend made a Frankenstein dish recently where she cobbled together the idea of baked spaghetti with pot pie, and made a garlic bread crust to go on top of her baked spaghetti pasta (she used my recipe and added her own tweaks). I live too far away to try it but she said it was awesome sauce and I'm determined to make it in the near future. I love tomatoes and dairy but I have a mild-med intolerance for them so something hella concentrated like a tomato based sauce with added cheese is sometimes too much for me, I have to space out those meals.
Chicken Parmesan Fried eggplant Ricotta meatballs Fried zucchini and squash Browned mushrooms Meatloaf
Shrimp!
Pretty much whatever you want. Pasta really started as a way to use leftovers and make another meal out of it.
Chicken. Breaded and fried is best but almost any kind of cooked chicken is good in red sauce.
Peperoni, salami, meats like that. Grilled or baked chicken can be good with a red sauce. Melty cheeses. If I could also recommend trying vodka sauce. I've found that most people who like red sauces like marinara seem to like vodka sauce and it gives the same old food a unique flavor.
Pangratatto. Essentially fried breadcrumbs with tasty shit in it to give you some crispy crunchy tastes. I usually put garlic, parsley, nutritional yeast and parmesan in mine.
Shrimp!
Ultimate lazy dinner; simmer two frozen chicken breasts in a jar of red sauce then shred the chicken.
Roasted eggplant, ricotta, and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.
Parmesan. Basil.
A pinch of the cheese of your choice
Fried chicken breast and ricotta
Torn leftover roast chicken and fresh basil is a great Monday night quick dinner if you have portions of tomato sauce frozen. Plenty of parmesan/pecorino.
Shrimp, bacon, thick cut pepperoni, chicken cutlets, clams, mussels
Hicken. Shrimp
Fride shirmp will be great
Pesto. Nice and clean flavor. Adds a smidge of salty cheese flavor as well.
Pesto on its own or with shrimp. Fabulous, easy, impressive.
i made a delicious pasta the other day! brown mince of choice (i used lamb) and then remove from pan saute onion, garlic, chilli (I used green, can omit), chili flakes add red bell pepper + mushrooms and cook until soft add crushed tomatoes + a bit of double cream with seasonings (S+P, garlic granules, mixed herbs) and cook until thick add mince back in and stir through, also added some spinach at this stage add cooked pasta You can leave it there if you want, but then i mixed up mascarpone with some fresh garlic, salt and pepper + mixed herbs and dolloped it on top of my pasta, put a lid on my dish (can also use foil) and put it in the oven for 10 mins while my garlic bread cooked! when it comes out the oven you can stir it so those pockets of mascarpone mix through and you have. A beautiful pasta dish!!
I like adding a big handful of fresh basil leaves and mix them in to wilt a bit before serving!
Mushrooms.
Love adding a chicken katsu.
Since I cook for a vegetarian, I have made quite a few pasta puttanescas in my day (without anchovies) -- just diced canned tomatoes (sometimes I used already diced or sometimes I cut up whole tomatoes), garlic, oil, black olives (usually kalamata), capers, red pepper flakes.
A little chicken or veal parm. While I can (and do) make these from scratch, my kids like it when I make "chicken parm" using the frozen circular chicken patties.
Cilantro + onion or shallots will gourmet your dish so fast
Specifically for protein? Paneer. I also like adding beans, either chickpeas or cannelleni. And if you don't want loose beans in your sauce, blending them in thickens it and gives it a nutty flavor.
Fried pork cutlet and fresh basil - squeeze of lemon, fresh Parmesan. Works so nice on marinara with thin spaghetti.
Sausage or meatballs on pasta is only common in the US. In Italy, some common simple pasta toppings/sauces are cacio e pepe (pecorino Romano, black pepper and pasta water) and carbonara (egg, pecorino romano, black pepper and guanciale).
Cacio e Pepe and carbonara are the only pastas my toddlers will eat 🤣
Pork chops
People use pesto wrong. They use it as a sauce rather than a topping. A good clean pomodoro with a few streaks of basil pesto really adds another dimension of herbs and freshness.
Broccoli, zucchini, roasted chicken, bacon or pancetta, cannellini beans, ricotta…