My favorite part of my home is the pantry — which is what I very generously call a shelved corner of my apartment kitchen that contains so many spices, flour types, bags of coconut flakes from 2014, and canned chipotle peppers, it literally spills over into the adjacent corner, where I keep my bath towels.
Whether or not a pantry matches the traditional definition (which I suspect includes "not also containing all of your bed linens and one bar of soap"), it's the heart of a home kitchen. The place where shelf-stable ingredients, like dried mushrooms, canned legumes and tomatoes, spices, nuts, hot sauces, brined olives, and more wait patiently for your moment of need. This magical place makes it possible to create a cozy, hearty meal without putting on pants or exiting your apartment.
Which is where pasta comes in. But not the kind with fresh noodles, a million types of vegetables, and every variety of cheese under the sun — pantry pasta.
Spaghetti aglio e olio e salsiccia (spaghetti with garlic, olive oil, and sausage)
(James Ransom/Courtesy Food52)
One-pot tomatoey, cheesy pasta with shallots
Here are the six best pantry pastas you can make:
Emily's bright sauce — which she describes as a thicker, sweeter, sardine-y take on pasta puttanesca — invites canned tomatoes, cured olives, red pepper flakes, and capers in brine to the party. Can we set our auto-RSVP to "yes, please"?
2. Pantry pasta with anchovies, olives, and capers
(James Ransom/Courtesy Food52)
3. Creamy lemon spaghetti with crunchy breadcrumbs
The very best pantry pastas call for only a few ingredients and encourage you to make them your own. This lemony, bread-crumb-y number from Jo Thrasher does just that. Add extra lemon zest to the cream sauce? Go ahead. Change up the pasta shape? Such is your wont. Double down on grated pecorino? Do you. (But, yes.)
4. Bucatini in three-jar ajvar sauce
As one Food52 team member put it, the hardest part of making this deeply flavored dish is opening the three jars it calls for: one each for ajvar (a roasted red pepper sauce), sun-dried tomatoes preserved in oil, and kalamata olives.
This tuna-centric dish is another riff on puttanesca. "I tweaked this classic Italian recipe to make it a little saucier and bawdier — like it got relationship advice from its lusty cousin," says its creator. Cool, just let us know where to sign up for that advice column, because we're totally sold. (We've been cooking the tomatoes a few minutes extra given they're out of season.)
6. Spaghetti with porcini and tomato sauce
(Kitchen Karma/Courtesy Food52)
If olive oil, sherry, dried mushrooms, tinned anchovies, canned tomatoes, and butter formed a band, let's just say we'd be at every single concert. In the front row. Until then, we'll get our fill with this comforting, extra-savory spaghetti.
This story was originally published on Food52.com: 5 pantry pastas that ask basically nothing of you and give you everything in return.
