Our 40 Best Pasta Recipes

Chef Hugh Acheson's amatriciana sauce strikes the perfect balance of porky (from the pancetta) and spicy.

Grace Parisi's fried capers add a delectable, salty crunch to pasta tossed with fresh tomatoes and prosciutto.

This delicious pasta was the fastest and simplest to prepare of all the winners.

This hand-rolled pasta, made with a mix of buckwheat and all-purpose flours, is called blecs in Friuli. The name refers to the unconventional triangular shape, though the pasta can also be square

Pair this simple, flavorful pasta with a crisp Verdicchio.

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.

This super simple recipe takes a quick 35 minutes to whip up.

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.

Marc Murphy grew up eating this intensely cheesy baked spaghetti. "When I was young, we lived in Genoa, where spaghetti is the pasta of choice. This is my mother's version of macaroni and cheese," he says.

This Mediterranean dish from Marcie Turney is quick, simple and utterly delicious.

The judges applauded the rusticity of this gooey lasagna, packed with cheese and sausage. The style is called free-form because the pasta can be arranged in different ways—for instance, folded over the filling—instead of traditionally layered.

"The sauce fits the pasta," said Marc Vetri in praise of this tender veal ragù flavored with white wine, capers, thyme and rosemary, then tossed with the little ear-shaped orecchiette. "The meat, the capers—they hang on to the pasta when you lift up your fork."

Grace Parisi shares a traditional recipe with three tasty variations: Carrot-Potato Gnocchi, Roasted Garlic-Potato Gnocchi and Rye-Potato Gnocchi.

Spaghetti and meatballs is a crowd-pleasing classic Italian-American dish. The mixture of beef, veal and pork makes the meatballs really flavorful.

Jean-Georges Vongerichten transforms Gewürztraminer, a fruity white wine, into a light syrup. After swirling it with extra-virgin olive oil, basil and bacon, he drizzles the dressing over eggplant ravioli. It would also be superb on a green salad.

Try a fruit-forward Pinot Gris to pair with this dish.

In Italian cuisine, a sugo is a gravy or sauce. Here, Ethan Stowell prepares a pork sugo by braising pork shoulder until it almost falls apart, shredding it in a food processor and mixing it with a red-wine-and-tomato sauce; then he bakes it with orecchiette under a topping of Parmigiano cheese until crispy. The dish is an excellent alternative to the usual baked pasta, because it's not as heavy and cheesy but still delicious and satisfying.

Here's one of the quickest pesto sauces you'll come across. It's a perfect match for cheese tortellini, but you can use other tortellini such as mushroom or meat instead. The pesto is also great with just about any plain pasta.

A hearty meat sauce, lots of melted cheese and pasta make this dish a crowd-pleaser. Mostaccioli, a smooth, tube-shaped pasta with angled ends, is the go-to here, but penne also works well.

Balsamic vinegar adds a hint of sweetness to this savory sauce. If the slight sweet-and-sour effect isn't to your taste, either omit the vinegar completely or use wine vinegar instead. The effect will be different, but no less delicious.

Chef Chris Cosentino braises beef shank and oxtail in red wine to make a brasato he serves with house-made mint pappardelle.

Torn pieces of burrata are tossed into the orecchiette just after it's cooked so the cheese melts ever so slightly into the pasta, which is laced with chunks of tender, smoky eggplant.

Food & Wine's Justin Chapple cooks chorizo in oil, then uses that oil to cook shrimp and garlic, infusing this entire dish with excellent smoky flavor.

Food & Wine’s Justin Chapple makes a bright and nutty mint-and-pistachio pesto as the sauce for this fresh and summery warm pasta dish.

Allowing the pasta dough to rise (just like a bread dough) before rolling and shaping gives the cecamariti in this dish its characteristic texture and flavor. Fine Italian 00 flour can be found at specialty food shops and amazon.com.

For a simple and ultra-creamy baked pasta, take a cue from chef Ashley Christensen of Poole’s Diner: Trade the béchamel for this much easier sauce of heavy cream simmered with plenty of nutmeg and two kinds of cheese.

A glorious amount of crabmeat baked with shell-shaped pasta in a three-cheese cream sauce —tangy white cheddar, nutty Gruyère, and sharp Parmigiano-Reggiano—is no-joke delicious, and trés riche.

Generous portions of this pasta dish perfectly showcase the white truffle’s heady aroma. Use this tagliolini recipe, or purchase fresh spaghetti. Now is the time to break out a great bottle of wine to balance the creaminess of the dish with acid.

In matching spicy sausage with a creamy mustard sauce and fragrant basil, British cookbook author Nigel Slater created a quick pasta supper with warm, mildly spicy flavors, perfect for a cool fall or winter evening.

For a crowd-pleaser at any party, Colu Henry combines sheet pan-roasted cauliflower with pasta along with some crispy capers for salty crunch; anchovies (just a few) for umami depth; sautéed garlic and red pepper flakes for oomph, and lemon zest for brightness.

A classic browned butter and sage sauce gets a boost of fall flavor from pumpkin butter. Be generous with the Parmigiano-Reggiano, as its salty, savory bite adds the perfect hit of umami flavor to this decadent pasta dish.

A deceptively simple recipe, chef Ludo Lefebvre’s Niçoise Pasta is an indulgent, creamy dish that comes together in the time it takes to boil pasta. The no-cook sauce relies on the cream emulsifying with fresh basil and garlic in the food processor to thicken into a rich sauce in minutes.

Chef Andrew Zimmern mimics the sweet, fragrant lemons of Italy’s Amalfi Coast with Meyer lemons in this beautifully bright and creamy pasta. The dish originated at L’Antica Trattoria in Sorrento, where lemon juice is tossed with just-cooked pasta until absorbed. Supremes of lemon add a juicy, tart pop that cuts through the cream in the sauce.

To create the classic ridges on each piece of gnocchi, use a paddle or fork to gently indent each side. Those grooves help the rich, buttery sauce cling to each tender bite.

This ricotta gnocchi dough from 2019 Best New Chef Misti Norris is first gently cooked in a water bath, then sliced, and then, right before serving, seared to achieve a crispy-on-the-outside, custardy-on-the-inside texture. Accompanied by roasted eggplant sauce, vinegar-spiked eggplant and peppers, and a creamy, dreamy Parmesan mousse, all of the dish components can be made ahead and assembled at the last minute, making this dish dinner party gold.

For special occasions, Food & Wine’s Justin Chapple makes beautiful, fresh pappardelle pasta, then tosses it with a quick and decadent carbonara sauce laced with briny pops of caviar and lemon zest. When he doesn’t feel like making the pasta from scratch, he buys the noodles fresh at his local Italian market.

In a clever play on carbonara, Food & Wine’s Justin Chapple uses smoked Gouda cheese, adding a deliciously smoky flavor to this silky, hearty and totally delicious pasta.

Native to Italy, nepitella is a leafy herb similar in appearance and flavor to oregano, with notes of mint and basil. If you can’t locate it at specialty grocercy stores, try a mix of fresh mint and oregano.

Press and seal fresh basil leaves in homemade pasta dough to make three-cheese ravioli that are as beautiful as they are delicious, paired in this recipe with a no-fuss, no-cook fresh tomato sauce that doesn’t distract from the delicate pasta.

2005 F&W Best New Chef Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson adds a generous amount of crisp green and wax beans to this light summer pasta for crunch and body, so the dish uses fewer noodles.