Essential Italian Pasta Recipes (2024)

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Credit: Antonis Achilleos; Food Styling: Margaret Dickey; Prop Styling: Kay Clarke

Our best spaghetti carbonara recipe is silky with egg and melted cheese, freshened with parsley, and spiked with black pepper. We also love this dish for its short cooking time. The ingredients are things we tend to have always on hand, making it the ultimate weeknight-dinner solution. Just add a green salad or seasonal vegetable and the meal is complete. Also, we left out the cream that's often used in spaghetti carbonara in the United States, so it's both lighter and truer to the Italian original. And we've included some variations to keep the recipe interesting in case you find yourself making it over and over again.

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Credit: Brian Woodco*ck; Styling: Claire Spollen

This simple lasagna is perfect for when you're short on time, but craving a comforting meal. Ready in just over an hour, it requires only 50 minutes of cooking in the oven.

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Credit: Colin Clark; Food Styling: Kellie Gerber Kelley; Prop Styling: Lindsey Lower

The splash of vodka works as a flavor enhancer, adding a little jolt to the creamy sauce.

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Credit: Oxmoor House

The right amount of salt and spice makes this Italian pasta dish feel decadent, while fresh Parmesan, basil, and arugula keep it light. The canned tomatoes make it a quick dish, easy to pull together during the week. To make the cheese shavings, gently drag a vegetable peeler against the side of a Parmesan cheese wedge.

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Credit: John Clark

The liquor (juice) from your freshly dug clams is the key sauce ingredient in this easy crowd-pleaser from Langdon Cook, blogger and author of Fat of the Land. If freshly dug clams seem especially sandy, soak them in a bucket of clean salt water for a few hours. Don't forget to tell people that it's totally acceptable to pick up the clams and slurp the meat right out of the shell.

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Credit: Hector Sanchez; Styling: Caroline M. Cunningham

Spend 20 minutes in the kitchen prepping this gorgeous, hearty sauce. Once the sauce simmers in the cooker, all that's left to do is cook a pound of pasta, and serve.

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Credit: John Kernick

The chef at Osteria di San Cesario, Anna Dente, is known as the Queen of Matriciana. She not only makes the pasta and sauce herself, she draws on her family's four decades in the butchering business to make her own guanciale (cured hog jowl)–though the sauce is also fantastic made with pancetta.

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Credit: John Autry; Styling: Cindy Barr

Making your own bolognese sauce from scratch is deeply satisfying - and delicious! Serve the sauce over hot cooked spaghetti noodles with a green salad and garlic toast for a complete meal.

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Credit: Amy Neunsinger

Pasta alla Formiana is a quick and very simple dish that you can make with ingredients that you can find at the grocery store.

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Credit: James Carrier

Lynne Schaefer found that a favorite recipe for cacciatore-style chicken was also a great way to prepare shrimp.

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This shrimp fettuccine alfredo recipe, which calls for quick-cooking refrigerated pasta, is a great go-to dish for hectic week nights. Serve with a side of roasted asparagus.

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Credit: Becky Luigart-Stayner

To keep the prosciutto from sticking together in the pasta, lay it out on a plate to dry after you chop it. The rich, nutty flavor of the Asiago complements the saltiness of the prosciutto, but Parmesan can be substituted if necessary.

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