Vegetarian Recipes

30+ Best Pasta Recipes

Spinach Noodles with Citrus-Nori Oil Recipe

Looking for great pasta recipes? These are the best pasta recipes on 101 Cookbooks.

Homemade Cavatelli

Simple, homemade cavatelli pasta is a super fun shape to make! Pictured here spiked with turmeric and black pepper, and topped with roasted winter vegetables and Parmesan.
Homemade Pasta

Everything I know about making homemade pasta. Four ingredients! If you have flour, two eggs, a splash of olive oil, and a bit of salt, you can do it right now.
Spaghetti with No-Cook Sauce

A tangle of spaghetti, olives, nuts, vegetables, and torn mozzarella in a no-cook, lemon-zested tomato sauce. A recipe for a hot night when tomato season is at its peak.
Curried Tomato Tortellini Soup

A crowd-pleasing tomato-based tortellini soup, dotted with plump, tender dumplings, spiked with a range of spices, and boosted with plenty of spinach.
Stuffed Shells

A stuffed shells recipe made with lemon zest and bright tomato sauce. Classic, with a hint of a twist. Everyone loves them.
Hazelnut & Chard Ravioli Salad

Ravioli salads are the best! Plump raviolis tossed with toasted hazelnuts, lemony chard, and caramelized onions are at the heart of this ravioli salad recipe. The colorful platter is finished off with a dusting of cheese, snipped chives, and lemon zest.
Spaghetti with No-Cook Sauce

A tangle of spaghetti, olives, nuts, vegetables, and torn mozzarella in a no-cook, lemon-zested tomato sauce. A recipe for a hot night when tomato season is at its peak.
Pasta with Smashed Zucchini Cream

If you have an endless supply of zucchini right now, this is your recipe. A simple, garlic-boosted pasta, it uses two pounds of zucchini, and is endlessly adaptable.
Pasta with Creamy Crushed Walnut Sauce

Toasted walnuts pounded with garlic into a creamy sauce make this pasta easy and exceptional. If you have dried pasta, a few cloves of garlic, walnuts, and black pepper you can make this. The other ingredients – lemon zest, a bit of grated cheese, a finishing cascade of breadcrumbs and herbs are encouraged, but not essential. One of my very favorite pasta recipes!
Pasta with Etruscan Sauce

From the Pasta Grannies series, this is a simple pasta with a special sauce made from a quick puree of sun-dried tomatoes, black olives, parsley, and garlic. It’s fast, strong, adaptable, and doesn’t disappoint.
Last Minute Red Lasagna

Everyone needs a go-to lasagna recipe. A great one. This is a true weeknight lasagna. No pre-cooking sauces, no pre-cooking noodles. You, literally, stir the first five ingredients together into a vibrant crushed tomato sauce, and start layering.
Beer-Roasted Cauliflower with Pasta

Poach a whole head of cauliflower in an olive-oil dappled, chile-spiked, beer-based broth, then wedge it & roast it until golden-crusted and butter tender.
Weeknight Ponzu Pasta

All things green in a quick, weeknight pasta option. It’s feel-good food that won’t weigh you down – ponzu dressing, green vegetables, and the pasta of your choice.
Instant Pot Mushroom Stroganoff with Vodka

Make this stroganoff your dinner tonight, seriously! Made with caraway-spiked vodka, and a hearty mushroom base, you get all of what you love about mushroom stroganoff, without the all the butter and cream.
Vegetable Noodle Soup

This vegetable noodle soup is as simple, direct, and delicious as it gets. If you’re vegetarian or vegan looking for an alternative to chicken noodle soup, try this!
Pasta with Baby Kale, Toasted Pumpkin Seeds, and Pesto

Literally, just six ingredients in this awesome pasta bowl.
Spicy Tahini Noodles with Roasted Vegetables

This is my favorite kind of weeknight meal. Noodles tossed with a quick sauce, topped with an abundance of vegetables, and kissed with chile feistiness courtesy of the condiment shelf.
Quick Blistered Cherry Tomato Spaghetti

So good! If you’re looking for one of these pasta recipes to try, this is it. An updated take on weeknight spaghetti. It’s basically spaghetti combined with skillet blistered cherry tomatoes and broccoli. Tossed with mint, cashews, chiles, and Parmesan.
Weeknight Pasta Ideas with Less Than Ten Ingredients

A solid handful of weeknight pasta ideas to keep things quick-ish and creative.
Easy Tomato & Pasta Salad

Pasta salad extraordinaire – tomatoes & pasta in an A+ one-bowl meal. Whole-grain pasta, baby kale, basil, and the best tomatoes you can get your hands on, with a generous drizzle of strong harissa dressing.
Fregola Sarda, the Perfect Lunchy Brunch Dish

Fregola is a beautiful, tasty Sardinian pasta made from hard durum wheat flour – rolled, sun-dried, and toasted to a mix of shades of yellow, gold, and brown. It’s so good.
Simple Beet Fettuccine

Fresh pasta, you can do it! A beautiful, fun, and simple way to make homemade fettuccine noodles.
Last Minute Everything Bagel Noodle Bowl

A perfect one-pot meal. Noodles, tofu, and broccoli boiled in one pot, drained, tossed with splashes of olive oil and ponzu, plus a generous showering of everything bagel seasoning to finish it all off.
Roasted Vegetable Orzo

Roasted delicata squash and kale tossed w/ orzo pasta & salted yogurt dressing.
Creamy Four Ingredient Chili Mac (Instant Pot / Conventional)

Chili, beer, and elbow pasta. I know of no other dinner that takes less effort than the Instant Pot version of this. It’s literally for nights when take-out takes too long, and is too much effort. Seriously.
Spicy Tahini Noodles with Roasted Vegetables

This is my favorite kind of weeknight meal. Noodles tossed with a quick sauce, topped with an abundance of vegetables, and kissed with chile feistiness courtesy of the condiment shelf.
Brown Butter Tortelli

A simple pasta dish made from ricotta-stuffed tortelli tossed with brown butter balsamic sauce, arugula, pecorino cheese, and lemon zest.
An Excellent, One-pan, Protein-packed Power Pasta

One-pot meals are the savior of weeknight cooking, and this pasta is a go-to. It’s pasta and lentils simmered in crushed tomatoes, finished with lots of chopped kale, saffron, swirls of tahini and chopped almonds.
Harissa Spaghettini

A unique and flavor-packed pasta recipe. Whole wheat pasta noodles, olives, kale, pine nuts tossed in a pan for a tangle with a garlic-charged harissa and olive oil sauce.
Spinach Noodles with Citrus-Nori Oil

A twist on a favorite pasta recipe from Super Natural Simple. Light and bright with assertive jolts of lemon zest and cayenne, plus a bit of crunch from sesame seeds, this version was made with Spinach pasta, but can be made with a whole range of noodles. Grab the recipe on this page, just below!

I hope at least a few of these pasta recipes strike a chard with you!

Spinach Noodles with Citrus-Nori Oil

This is a twist on a favorite pasta recipe from Super Natural Simple. Light and bright with assertive jolts of lemon zest and cayenne, plus a bit of crunch from sesame seeds, this version was made with Spinach pasta, but can be made with a whole range of noodles. Bonus point for adding extra vegetables to the pasta water – broccoli, asparagus, green beans, and cauliflower all work well.

INGREDIENTS

1 (8-inch) sheet nori, toasted*
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
Zest of 2 lemons, oranges, limes (or combo)
4 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 bunch chives, minced
1 pound dried spinach noodles
1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Pecorino cheese

INSTRUCTIONS

Crush or cut the toasted nori into the smallest flecks you can manage. In a small bowl, combine most of the nori, the oil, salt, lemon zest, sesame seeds, cayenne, cumin, and most of the chives and set aside.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the noodles and cook according to the package instructions. Drain well, reserving 1 cup of the noodle water. Return the noodles to the pot and place it over low heat. Stir in a little of the reserved noodle water, most of the nori oil, and the cheese and stir well. Add more noodle water, a splash at a time, to loosen up the noodles as needed.
Serve immediately topped with the remaining nori pieces, the chives, and the remaining nori oil.
*To toast nori, gently wave it over the flame of a gas burner or bake it on a baking sheet in a 350°F oven until crisped. Cool, then crumble.

NOTES

Serves 4 to 6.

The post 30+ Best Pasta Recipes appeared first on 101 Cookbooks

Cheesy Vegetarian

Easy Mediterranean Lentil Meatballs

Don’t you just love it when a recipe is as simple as ‘mix + bake’? No pre-cooking, no unnecessary extra steps – just mix together all of the ingredients, and pop it in the oven. And that’s just the case for these vegetarian lentil meatballs (lentil balls? vegeballs? meatlessballs?). They couldn’t be easier.

Other easy ‘mix and bake’ recipes → easy nut roast; baked fajita rice; Boursin pasta.

Vegetarian Mediterranean lentil meatballs served with spaghetti and tomato sauce.

I served my lentil balls with spaghetti and tomato sauce – spaghetti and meatballs is such a classic that’s hard to improve on. If you prefer, you could equally serve these vegetarian meatballs with couscous and tzatziki, stuffed into pitta bread, or even just eaten straight from the oven (no judgment here). They’re packed with Mediterranean-inspired flavours, and they’re super versatile.

Mediterranean lentil meatballs on a baking tray.

What’s in these Lentil Meatballs?

The basic recipe for these lentil meatballs is canned lentils + flour + egg (the same base I used for my cheesy lentil burgers). Once you’ve got that far, you can jazz things up however you like. I added:

black olives
sun-dried tomatoes
parmesan-style cheese
fresh basil
garlic

If you like, you could easily switch things up to bring a different flavour profile to your meatballs – maybe you could make a Tex-Mex version, or use some Indian spices, for example.

Cheesy Vegetarian Bakes ebook on an ipad screen.

Sign up to get recipes by email, and get a FREE e-cookbook!

(1-2 emails per week, no spam)

Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to make these vegetarian meatballs. See the printable recipe card below for detailed ingredient quantities.

cooked lentils. I used lentils from a can, because they’re so convenient – just drain them well, and they’re ready to use. If you can’t get canned lentils, you can boil dried brown or green lentils until they’re soft, then continue with the recipe as written. I would not recommend using red lentils for this recipe, as they will not give quite the same end result.
eggs
plain flour (I used wholemeal for extra fibre)
sun-dried tomatoes
black olives
parmesan-style cheese. ‘Real’ parmesan isn’t vegetarian, but there are plenty of vegetarian alternatives, which are very similar. Often, supermarkets sell a generic ‘Italian hard cheese’, which is usually vegetarian.
fresh basil
garlic granules

Spaghetti with tomato sauce and Mediterranean lentil meatballs.

Printable Instructions

Mediterranean Lentil Meatballs

Easy vegetarian lentil meatballs, made extra tasty with Mediterranean-inspired ingredients. These are so simple – just mix and bake!

Course Main meal

Cuisine Italian, Mediterranean

Diet Vegetarian

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 20

Total Time 35

Servings meatballs

Calories 216kcal

Author Becca Heyes

Ingredients

2 x 390g tins green lentils, thoroughly drained (470g, or ~ 2 2/3 cups, in total when drained)
2 eggs
2 Tablespoons sliced black olives, roughly chopped
5 pieces sun-dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
50 g (~ 1/2 cup) finely grated vegetarian parmesan-style cheese
1 teaspoon garlic granules
Few sprigs fresh basil, roughly chopped
85 g (~ 2/3 cup) plain flour (I used wholemeal)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 190°C (Gas Mark 5 / 375°F). Add all of the ingredients, except for the flour, to a large mixing bowl. Use a fork to mix the ingredients thoroughly. It’s fine if the lentils get a little mashed up.
Add the flour, and mix well to combine.
Lightly grease a baking sheet. Use clean hands to form the mixture into ball shapes, and place them on the tray. The mixture will be quite sticky – they don’t have to be perfect balls. I managed to get 25 balls from the mixture.
Bake for approximately 20-25 minutes, until the lentil balls are slightly crispy and just firm.
Serve with spaghetti and tomato sauce, if desired.

Nutrition

Recipe FAQs

Can I prepare these lentil balls in advance?

You could certainly mix together the ingredients in advance, and then store the mixture in a sealed container in the fridge for a day or so, until you’re ready to shape and bake the balls. The meatballs are tastiest when freshly baked, but if needed, you could even bake them in advance, and then reheat when you’re ready to eat them.

Can I freeze these lentil meatballs?

I didn’t experiment with freezing these balls, but it’s the sort of recipe I have had luck with freezing in the past, so I definitely think it’s worth a try.

How should I reheat leftover vegetarian meatballs?

The easiest way to reheat these lentil meatballs is in the microwave. They do dry out a little and lose their crispiness when reheated, but they’re still tasty. Alternatively, you could re-crisp them in the oven or air fryer.

How should I serve vegetarian lentil balls?

I served my meatballs with spaghetti and tomato sauce, which worked beautifully. You could alternatively serve them stuffed into pitta bread with some tzatziki, or alongside some mashed potato.