Healthy Pasta Recipes for Winter

Just because tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and zucchini are no longer in season doesn’t mean you can’t make a fabulous vegetable-based pasta.

You can turn almost any vegetable into a pasta sauce, including winter vegetables. Here are some of my favorite pasta and winter vegetable combinations:

• Linguine with Slow-Cooked Onions and Olives – When cooked slowly, onions caramelize into sweet, melt-in-your mouth morsels that pair perfectly with salty olives.

• Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Leeks and Chile – Leeks cook down into sauce in no time. Nutty whole wheat pasta and dried hot chiles enhance their sweet flavor.

• Penne with Fresh and Dried Mushrooms – Dried wild mushrooms like black trumpets enhance the taste of ordinary white button mushrooms.

• Linguine with Braised Savoy Cabbage and Roasted Garlic – Braised cabbage makes a rich, buttery pasta sauce.

• Whole Wheat Farfalle with Roasted Potatoes – The nutty flavor of whole wheat pasta complements tender browned potatoes.

• Penne with Winter Squash – Winter squash has such a long storage life that you could make pastas with it until spring-time. My favorite combo is butternut squash with hot red pepper flakes and nutmeg. The sauce is sweet, hot, and spicy – perfect for a cold day.

• Ziti with Roasted Carrots, Capers, and Herbes de Provence – Dried Herbes de Provence provide fresh-herb flavor even in the middle of winter. Goat cheese is a nice addition here.

• Whole Wheat Farfalle with Lentils and Kale – Kale is already a superfood, but pair it with lentils and whole wheat pasta and you’ll have an incredibly healthful dish.

• Soba Noodles with Chard and Oranges – Check out my recipe here.

• Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce – Make the sauce from San Marzano tomatoes that were frozen or canned during the peak of their season

• Pesto Lasagne – Use basil that was harvested and frozen mid-summer.

Image courtesy of gravity_grave via a Creative Commons license.