Fall Pasta Recipes

F&W's Kay Chun tops pasta with a very fast and delicious combination of pork sausage, brussels sprouts and crispy breadcrumbs.

The neck of the butternut squash is easy to peel and cube, making it perfect for dishes easy pasta dishes. This recipe is a great way to use up that pesky bottom half, as here the halved squash is simply baked until soft, and then the flesh is scooped out.

This is the ultimate fall gnocchi dish.

Andrew Zimmern makes his velvety pasta sauce--a classic Italian combination of sweet squash and veal--even more luscious with a touch of cream.

This indulgent recipe, adapted from star chef Suzanne Goin's 2013 A.O.C. Cookbook, combines thick, tubular torchio pasta with a cheesy sauce, sweet potato chunks, radicchio slices, pecans and even more cheese.

Roasting the butternut squash makes for a tender and creamy sauce.

Orzo plays a very comforting role in this dish, soaking up a savory pumpkin and spicy cheddar cheese sauce. Tossing in fresh peppery greens to this just before serving adds a pop of color and great texture to this warm pasta salad.

This pasta is comforting but light, adding a fresh squeeze of lemon juice in at the end complements the fennel well and gives a slightly sharp taste to the creaminess of the sauce.

Leaves of fresh sage sautéed in golden-brown butter form a classic Italian pasta sauce. Our version uses ground sage, and so you can make it any time of the year. We've added a generous amount of garlic, too. Slowly cooking it in the butter mellows its pungency, but you can also use fewer cloves if you prefer.

This rich, earthy dish featuring canned pumpkin puree was inspired by stovetop mac and cheese. The hazelnut and chive garnishes lend an elegant touch to this hearty pasta.

This super-creamy lasagna is perfect for a vegetarian main course. What makes it especially unusual is that it's made without tomato sauce.

"This pasta," Mario Batali says, "always propels me into fall." You can substitute pumpkin or hubbard squash—whichever looks more beautiful at your market—for the butternut. "Cook the squash until it's soft but not falling apart—you don't want al dente squash, but you don't want mush either," Batali says.

Marc Vetri sautés cauliflower and brussels sprouts with onion, garlic, anchovies and herbs until they're charred and flavorful, then tosses them with long, thick strands of bucatini. The best part: the crispy bread crumb topping.

"My carbo-meter goes 'ding' every time the weather turns cool. If you can relate to this at all, I suggest you make this recipe right away. There is no better autumnal treat than this amazingly insane gnocchi classic. I dare you to eat just one bowl. I started making a lot of gnocchi about 26 years ago at a restaurant called A La Colonna, which a man named John Schumacher owned in NYC. I worked there one summer and got schooled on the gnocchi and risotto stations. This classic northern-Italian combo of sage-Parmesan-gnocchi-brown-butter is one of my top five desert-island dishes." —Andrew Zimmern

Roasted butternut squash gets incorporated into decadent risotto, then topped with juicy shrimp in this fantastic dish.

Sweet squash is the perfect counterpoint to spicy sausage in this warming winter pasta.

F&W's Melissa Rubel Jacobson created this recipe to use up extra dried mushrooms and odds and ends of pasta. While the different pasta shapes cook at different rates in the water, they all become tender once baked.

Chef Dave Beran adds a little whipped cream to this earthy mushroom risotto, which improbably makes the dish a little lighter tasting. The ultimate wine pairing: an earthy Barbaresco.

So fall, so flavorful.

La matricia, Salvatore Denaro claims, is Tuscan for "paunch" or "belly"--pancetta, in short, which plays an important role in this pasta sauce. Not to be confused with pasta all'amatriciana, a tomato-and-guanciale dish from the region of Lazio, Denaro's creation, which he calls La Matricianina, is entirely original, made with plenty of shallots and sage. It's wonderful served over spaghetti, or better yet, over short, stubby rigatoni.