Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• Using gnocchi and tasty pizza toppings makes a really lovely change from a regular pizza or a pasta dish.
• You can customise the dish using your favourite pizza toppings – try some different combinations!
• This gnocchi recipe reheats nicely, so make enough for leftovers.
• Ooey gooey mozzarella cheese… need I say more?

Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to make this recipe. You’ll also need a few cupboard staples, like oil and black pepper. See the printable recipe card below for detailed ingredient quantities.

• gnocchi. I use either fresh gnocchi, or the vacuum-packed stuff – either one is fine. You could even use homemade gnocchi or ricotta gnocchi!
• pizza sauce – whichever one’s your favourite!
• onion – this time I used frozen diced onion, but use fresh onion if you prefer.
• garlic
• mozzarella cheese – I find the ready-grated stuff melts the best, rather than fresh mozzarella.
• fresh chives
• your favourite pizza toppings – I used mushrooms, black olives, yellow pepper, and cherry tomatoes.

Becca’s Top Tip

You don’t have to use the pizza toppings I chose – just use whatever you like to have on pizza! My other favourite toppings include diced red onion, sweetcorn, peppers, and pineapple.

Instructions

Here’s how to make this recipe – see below for the printable recipe with detailed ingredients and instructions.

Step 1: Sauté some gnocchi with some diced onion. This helps the gnocchi to become light and fluffy – you can find out more in my post ‘How to fry gnocchi (and why you should want to!)‘

Step 2: Add your favourite tomato pizza sauce. I used shop-bought sauce, but a homemade tomato sauce would also be great.

Step 3: Transfer the tomatoey gnocchi to a baking dish, and add mozzarella cheese and your favourite pizza toppings. I used yellow peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms and black olives.

Step 4: Bake until the cheese is nice and gooey.

Becca’s Top Tip

If you’re in a big rush, you can skip the sautéing, and just add the gnocchi straight to the baking dish with the sauce. However, if you have time, I would definitely recommend taking the extra few minutes to fry it off a little first, as it really does lighten up the gnocchi.

Recipe FAQs

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• Cheesy pasta is the best form of comfort food, but this version has a bit of extra nutrition thrown in for good measure.
• Garlic mushroom mac and cheese is a real people-pleaser – perfect to cook for friends and family.
• It’s easy to make in bulk, so you can double the recipe if you need to feed a crowd.
• Or, freeze any leftovers, and have it ready to microwave when you need a quick pick-me-up after a long day.
• Did I mention it tastes bloomin’ incredible?

Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to make this recipe. You’ll also need some black pepper from your kitchen cupboard. See the printable recipe card below for detailed ingredient quantities.

• pasta – macaroni is the obvious choice for mac and cheese, but any similar small pasta shape will work.
• mushrooms – I used chestnut mushrooms, but white mushrooms, portobello mushrooms, button mushrooms, etc. will all work fine. You could even use a mixture of mushroom types, for a bit of variety.
• onion
• garlic
• chives
• cheddar cheese – it’s best to grate your own, rather than using pre-grated, if possible
• milk
• flour
• butter

Becca’s Top Tip

I took the lazy route and used minced garlic from a jar, rather than mincing my own. For a recipe like this, where you want to use plenty of garlic, it’s a really easy way to avoid having to stand there peeling and chopping for ten minutes!

Instructions

Here’s how to make this recipe – see below for the printable recipe with detailed ingredients and instructions.

Step 1: Start by gently cooking the onions, garlic and mushrooms in butter. Your house will already be smelling incredible by this point!

Step 2: Push the mushrooms to the edge of the pan, and create the white sauce in the centre. If you prefer, you might find it easier to use a separate pan (I just like to save on washing up where I can!). And if you’re a white sauce novice, make sure you check out my detailed instructions about how to make a simple white sauce.

Step 3: Add some chopped chives and plenty of grated cheese, and combine to make a rich, cheesy sauce.

Step 4: Add cooked pasta.

Step 5: Transfer the mixture to a baking dish, and top with more grated cheese. Bake until crispy.

Step 6: Serve it hot with some extra veggies, if you like.

Becca’s Top Tip

The garlic mushroom mac and cheese is super rich and creamy, so I find a nice green salad on the side works perfectly to cut through the richness.

Recipe FAQs

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• It’s packed with flavour, different textures, and all kinds of goodness.
• Pasta salad makes a great light meal for sunshiny days, but there’s no reason you couldn’t curl up with a bowlful at any time of year, if the weather’s not on your side!
• You can switch out the ingredients depending on your personal preferences, what catches your eye in the store, or just what you have lingering in the fridge!
• Chickpea pasta salad is the ideal meal to cook in bulk and then store in the fridge for a few days, serving big spoonfuls in lunchboxes, or just for a quick meal whenever you need one.

Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to make this recipe. You’ll also need a few cupboard staples, like salt and pepper. See the printable recipe card below for detailed ingredient quantities.

• pasta. Any smallish shape is welcome here, such as macaroni, penne, conchiglie, fusilli, or farfalle (which is what I used). I would avoid long strands of pasta (like spaghetti, tagliatelle or mafalde), as they don’t work as well for pasta salad.
• fresh pesto. Pesto is easy to find in jars for fairly cheap, but if you can splash out on a tub of the fresh stuff (or just make your own at home!), I promise it’s worth it – you can really taste the difference. I used basil pesto, but any variety will work well.
• chickpeas – tinned ones, to make this a quick throw-together meal.
• red onion
• black olives
• feta cheese
• tinned sweetcorn
• cherry tomatoes
• fresh arugula (rocket)

Becca’s Top Tip

The only thing that needs cooking in this recipe is the pasta – so if you have any cooked pasta leftover from yesterday, this chickpea pasta salad will be even quicker to make!
To prevent cooked pasta from clumping as it cools, make sure you rinse it thoroughly in cold water, so the starch doesn’t stick it together. Then, just store it in the fridge for a day or two, until you’re ready to mix up your pasta salad.

Formula for a Perfect Vegetarian Pasta Salad

This type of recipe is just calling out for you to put your own spin on it. I won’t be offended if you want to switch things up a bit! You can easily change up any of the ingredients to suit your preferences.

My go-to formula for a tasty pasta salad is this:

pasta + protein + vegetables + leaves + tasty bits + dressing

If you stick to this simple formula, you’re sure to end up with a super tasty pasta salad. Here are some ideas!

• Protein (choose 1 or 2). I used tinned chickpeas and some crumbled feta cheese – you could change these for tinned lentils, tinned black beans, chopped boiled egg, grated cheddar cheese, mozzarella balls, pumpkin seeds, chopped peanuts or cashew nuts, etc.
• Fresh vegetables (choose 3+). Each vegetable brings a different flavour and texture to the salad, so try to choose a nice variety – as many different colours as you can (which helps it to look really good too!). I used tomatoes, sweetcorn and red onion. Other great veggies could be cucumber, spring onions, chopped bell peppers, or even finely chopped raw broccoli.
• Leafy greens (choose 1). I like to add some greens to bring a bit of vibrancy to the pasta salad. I used arugula (rocket), but some baby spinach would be great too. Stick with a dark green leaf, rather than something light like iceberg lettuce, which can wilt and go soggy more quickly.
• Tasty bits (choose 1 or 2). These are the ingredients that really bring a pasta salad to life with rich flavour. I used black olives – you could change them for sun-dried tomatoes, capers, pickled jalapeños, or fresh herbs like parsley or basil.
• Dressing (choose 1). I used fresh basil pesto, which is my go-to for an ultra tasty pasta salad. Other types of pesto work well too (tomato and chilli pesto is amazing!). Alternatively, you can opt for a salad dressing such as a creamy Caesar dressing (just make sure you choose a vegetarian one, or make your own homemade Caesar dressing).

Instructions

Here’s how to make this recipe – see below for the printable recipe with detailed ingredients and instructions.

Step 1: Boil your pasta until it’s cooked al dente, then rinse it thoroughly with cold water to stop it sticking together.

Step 2: Add the pesto, and mix thoroughly.

Step 3: Add the remaining ingredients, and mix to combine.

Step 4: Serve chilled.

Becca’s Top Tip

Pasta salad is perfect for vegetarian packed lunches! Store the fully assembled salad in the fridge in a sealed tub for up to 3 days, and just scoop some into your lunchbox whenever you need it.

Recipe FAQs

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• This baked Boursin pasta needs just six ingredients! So it can be whipped up in no time at all.
• It’s a one pot recipe, with everything (even the uncooked pasta) cooked together in just one baking dish – so you don’t even need to do much washing up afterwards.
• The flavour of the crispy baked Boursin is so unbelievably good!
• You can swap the spinach and mushrooms for whatever vegetables you like, as long as they will bake nicely with no pre-cooking.

Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to make this recipe. You’ll also need a few cupboard staples, like salt and pepper. See the printable recipe card below for detailed ingredient quantities.

• Boursin cheese. There are different flavours available, especially in the last few years, but this recipe uses the original Garlic and Herb flavour. It’s my favourite by a long way!
• macaroni. You could try using other pasta shapes, but I find a small shape like macaroni works best, as it cooks more quickly than a larger type of pasta. Bigger pasta might struggle to cook well using this method.
• fresh spinach
• mushrooms
• garlic
• milk

Becca’s Top Tip

If you want to swap the spinach and mushrooms for different vegetables, make sure you choose something that will bake nicely while the pasta is cooking. Tomatoes, asparagus, sweetcorn, chopped peppers, etc. would all work nicely. I would avoid anything particularly hard, like carrots, which will need to cook for longer.

Instructions

Here’s how to make this recipe – see below for the printable recipe with detailed ingredients and instructions.

Step 1: Add the spinach and mushrooms to a baking dish.

Step 2: Add some minced garlic, and scatter the macaroni over the top. Pour over the milk, nestling the pasta down into the milk as best you can.

Step 3: Top with a whole round of Boursin cheese, and sprinkle with some black pepper.

Step 4: Bake until the Boursin is nice and crispy, and the pasta is cooked.

Step 5: Break up the Boursin, and mix everything together thoroughly to create a creamy, garlicky sauce.

Becca’s Top Tip

If you can’t find Boursin cheese, you could use a block of feta for this recipe instead – just like in my baked feta mac and cheese.

Recipe FAQs

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• It. Is. Delicious!
• It’s the perfect one pot dinner – so there’s minimal faff, and minimal washing up!
• You can adjust the spices and vegetables to your own preferences – you can use it as a bit of a fridge clearer.
• This chilli mac is irresistible comfort food, but it’s still full of vegetables and protein-rich beans – the best of both worlds.
• It’s hearty enough to serve on its own, but just like all the best Tex-Mex meals, it can also be dressed up with your favourite toppings, like avocado, sour cream or tortilla chips!

Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to make this recipe. You’ll also need some kitchen staples, like oil, salt and black pepper.

A few ingredient notes:

• pasta – I used fusilli, but any similar shape will work, e.g. penne or spirali.
• onions – I actually used frozen diced onions, but fresh onion would be great too!
• bell pepper – I used a few mini ones, because that’s what I had on hand. One large pepper would also be great – red, yellow or orange would be the tastiest.
• mushrooms
• garlic
• kidney beans – black beans would be great too.
• spices – smoked paprika, ground cumin, and mild chilli powder. Use more chilli if you like it spicy!
• passata – this is a tomato sauce that is literally just made from sieved tomatoes. If you can’t find passata, any other similar tomato sauce will be fine.
• grated cheese – I used the pre-grated stuff, but cheese grated from a block would be even better.

See the printable recipe card below for detailed ingredient quantities.

Becca’s Top Tip

I love using frozen vegetables in this kind of meal. Frozen peppers, frozen onions and frozen mushrooms would all work well! They’re just as nutrient-rich as the fresh versions, but there’s no peeling or chopping involved, and frozen vegetables help to reduce food waste too!

Ingredient Swaps

Here are a few ways you could adapt this recipe:

• Swap the vegetables for whatever you already have in the fridge. Sweetcorn, courgette (zucchini), aubergine (eggplant), tomatoes, etc. would all work well.
• You could try using wholegrain pasta if you prefer. It usually takes a few more minutes to cook than white pasta, so may also need an extra splash of water.
• If you like things really spicy, swap the cheddar cheese for your favourite kind of spicy cheese – or, use something like mozzarella if you want your chilli mac to be mild and gooey.
• Mix through a dollop of cream cheese just before serving to make an extra creamy chilli mac.
• Black beans would work really well instead of kidney beans, if you prefer.

Instructions

Here’s how to make this recipe – see below for the printable recipe with detailed ingredients and instructions.

Step 1: Start by cooking off the onions, peppers and mushrooms for a few minutes, until they’re beginning to soften.

Step 2: Add the spices and kidney beans. The spices will begin to create the rich, spicy sauce as they coat the vegetables.

Becca’s Top Tip

If you find canned beans are sometimes a bit sludgy and get stuck to the inside of the tin, try giving the can a good shake before you open it. This will dislodge any beans that are stuck, and makes them much easier to tip out!

Step 3: Add the uncooked pasta and the passata. Bring to a simmer.

Step 4: When the pasta is cooked, stir through some of the cheese to make the whole dish nice and creamy. Melt the remaining cheese on top.

Step 5: Serve with your choice of toppings or side dishes. I chose fresh parsley and sliced avocado.

Chilli Mac FAQs

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• It’s creamy, it’s rich and tangy, it’s cheesy, it’s gooey, it’s hearty and comforting… Seriously, I can’t overstate just how insanely delicious these stuffed shells are!
• The recipe is simple and easy to put together, with no unnecessary steps.
• You can speed things up by using a good quality shop-bought sauce – or take the time to make your own from scratch.
• The dish can be prepared in advance if needed, so it’s perfect for serving to guests.
• Any leftovers (if you’re restrained enough to have them!) can easily be microwaved to reheat, or frozen until needed.

Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to make this recipe:

• large pasta shells – also known as conchiglioni.
• tomato sauce. I used a good quality shop-bought tomato sauce, as I wanted to keep things super simple. If you’d prefer to make your own sauce, I highly recommend my slow cooker tomato sauce, which can be made with barely any effort!
• ricotta cheese
• fresh spinach. You can swap this for frozen spinach, if you prefer.
• egg – to help firm up the creamy filling as it bakes.
• garlic
• nutmeg. You can skip this if you don’t have it to hand, but it does add a really nice warmth to the creamy pasta stuffing.
• parmesan-style cheese. ‘Real’ parmesan isn’t truly vegetarian, as it is made with animal rennet. Make sure you find a vegetarian version (often just called ‘Italian hard cheese’) instead!

See the printable recipe card below for detailed ingredient quantities.

Becca’s Top Tip

If you can’t find large pasta shells in your local supermarket, you can purchase them online – find them on Amazon US / Amazon UK.
Alternatively, you could use another ‘stuffable’ type of pasta, like cannelloni or manicotti.

Recipe Changes

There are a few ways you could adapt this recipe to make it just right for you.

• To add some extra veg, try scattering some cooked peas or peppers through the dish with the pasta shells.
• Or, if you chop your vegetables finely enough, you can add them to the spinach and ricotta stuffing. Some finely chopped mushrooms, for example, could be sautéed along with the spinach and garlic.
• Use grated cheddar or mozzarella on top of the shells for an even more melty, gooey finish.
• To make this recipe even quicker to make, you can also easily adapt it to use any other small shape of pasta. Just dollop the creamy spinach filling through the cooked pasta in the baking dish, rather than stuffing the shells individually. It will all taste the same in the end!

Instructions

Here’s how to make these tasty stuffed shells – see below for the printable recipe with detailed ingredients and instructions.

Step 1: Boil the pasta shells according to the instructions on the packet.

These large shells have a habit of getting cupped together in the pan (spooning in a little pasta cuddle), so poke them around a bit with a fork to make sure they’re all totally separate as they cook.

Step 2: Sauté the spinach with some garlic.

Fresh spinach is notorious for cooking down a lot, so you have to use quite a large quantity to begin with. You can add it to the pan a little at a time if it’s in danger of spilling over!

Step 3: When the spinach is cooked, combine it with the ricotta cheese, some grated parmesan, and an egg. I like to add a little ground nutmeg too, as well as plenty of salt and pepper.

Step 4: Stuff the spinach and ricotta mixture into the cooked pasta shells, and place them into a baking dish.

It’s no problem if the stuffed shells need to be stacked on top of each other – and please don’t be too tidy about it! This doesn’t need to take all day. It will end up tasting the same, no matter how messy you’re being.

Becca’s Top Tip

Add a thin layer of tomato sauce to the bottom of the baking dish, underneath the pasta. This will prevent the pasta from sticking to the dish, and also ensures that you get some tomatoey flavour throughout every bite.

Step 5: Top the shells with the remaining tomato sauce and grated parmesan. Cover the dish with a lid (or some kitchen foil, if you don’t have a suitable lid), and bake until everything is piping hot and the cheese is nice and gooey.

Stuffed Shells FAQs

The sauce is made by melting down soft goat cheese, which creates an irresistibly smooth, silky sauce that lightly coats the pasta noodles.

And much like my other creamy pasta recipes, this one can be adapted to use whatever vegetables you have in the fridge or freezer!

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• It can be on the table in just 15 minutes!
• It’s just as appropriate for a busy weeknight as it is for a fancy date with your partner
• It uses just a few simple ingredients
• It can easily be adapted to use whatever vegetables you have in the house

Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to make this simple creamy pasta dish:

• mafalde pasta. I love mafalde as it has more of a bite to it than some smaller pasta shapes, but of course, any other shape of pasta will also taste great in the creamy goat cheese sauce.
• goat cheese. Make sure you choose a soft and creamy goat cheese, not a hard one, as this will be best for the glossy goat cheese sauce.
• parmesan cheese. You’ll need to choose a vegetarian version here. ‘Real’ parmesan is actually made with animal rennet, but I find that most generic ‘Italian hard cheeses’ are vegetarian. Bonus – they’re usually cheaper too! You can buy it pre-grated, or grate it yourself.
• spinach. I used frozen spinach, but fresh spinach will work just fine too.
• garlic. A good rule of thumb is to use one clove of garlic per portion, but you can certainly increase this if you’re a big fan of garlicky food!
• pesto. Basil pesto is ideal for this dish. You can use homemade or shop-bought.
• pine nuts. You can eat pine nuts as they come, but I definitely recommend toasting them, as detailed below, as it improves the flavour immeasurably.

See the printable recipe card below for detailed ingredient quantities.

Becca’s Top Tip

There’s no need to look down on frozen vegetables! They’re just as nutrient-rich as fresh vegetables, and they also help to reduce food waste. Just take what you need, and return the rest to the freezer – no more half-bags of spinach left wilting in the fridge!

Ingredient Swaps

As with most of my recipes, this creamy pasta recipe is so easy to customise.

Here are a few ways you could adapt this recipe to suit you better:

• Swap the spinach for whatever other vegetables you have in the fridge or freezer. Pretty much anything will work – just be aware that a harder vegetable will take longer to cook. I’d recommend trying vegetables like peppers, mushrooms or asparagus, which can all cook very quickly in a frying pan.
• If you’re not a fan of goat cheese, try using another soft, melty cheese instead. Blue cheese, ricotta, mascarpone, or cream cheese should work nicely.
• Experiment with using different types of pesto (such as tomato pesto, for example). You could even swap it for fresh herbs instead.

Instructions

Here’s how to make this creamy mafalde pasta recipe.

Step 1: Begin to boil the pasta in plenty of water.

Step 2: While the pasta is cooking, fry off the spinach and garlic together. You can use a splash of oil if needed, but you might find it’s not necessary, especially if you’re using frozen spinach, as the water it releases is usually enough to prevent it from sticking.

Step 3: Add the goat cheese, parmesan and pesto to the pan, along with plenty of black pepper. Allow the cheese to melt down to create the smooth, glossy sauce. If the sauce seems too thick, add a splash of water to loosen it up a little.

Step 4: Toast the pine nuts in a dry frying pan. They only take a few minutes, and once they start to brown, they can turn quickly, so keep a close eye on them to prevent burning!

If you want, you can toast a few extra pine nuts, and save them to use up over the next couple of days. I love scattering them over salads and soups, crouton-style, like I did with this creamy mushroom soup.

Step 5: Add the cooked pasta to the sauce, along with the toasted pine nuts, and mix to combine.

I find a pair of tongs is the easiest way to toss pasta in sauce – I recommend ones with silicone tips, like these ones from Amazon US / Amazon UK, as they won’t scratch your non-stick pans.

Mafalde FAQs