The weeknight version of a meat-sauce pasta: the sauce is already made, so dinner is the time it takes the pasta to cook, about 10 minutes from a freezer full of previous laziness.
Picks
Rich and savoury, tight enough to cling.
- Cooking pasta in the pan: Long pasta, spaghetti or linguine
- Pasta sauces: From a base: meat sauce from the freezer, thawed
- Finishing pasta in the sauce: Tight
- Off the heat: Cheese: Parmesan, and basil if there is some
Why these picks
- Meat sauce from a base. The long cook happened weeks ago, when the Beef base braised until tender and became a batch of meat sauce. Tonight it only needs heating through with the pasta.
- Spaghetti or linguine. It’s how I make it most often, partly out of nostalgia. A thick sauce is harder on long pasta than short, so it needs stirring in the low water, but the starchy water loosens the sauce enough to coat every strand.
- Tight. A meat sauce left loose pools under long pasta. Cooked down until nothing pools, it clings.
- Parmesan off the heat. It salts the sauce and tightens it a little more, without going grainy.
How it fails
- Sauce pools in the bowl: it wasn’t cooked down far enough. Keep tossing over the heat, or stir in more cheese.
- Clumped spaghetti: it wasn’t stirred while it cooked. Long pasta in shallow water sticks to itself and the pan.
- Pasty or dry: the sauce went in frozen or too thick. Thaw it first, and loosen it with a splash of water.
Variations
- Short pasta: penne or rigatoni hold the sauce inside the tubes. Stir now and then so it doesn’t stick.
- Fresh broad noodles: tagliatelle or pappardelle from Fresh egg pasta suit a rich sauce best. Skip cooking it in the pan; it finishes in the sauce in 2–3 minutes with a splash of water, and brings less starch, so lean on the cheese.