Pasta recipes

A noodle crust filled with seasoned ground beef, cottage cheese, mozzarella, and pepperoni. Vermicelli pie is like lasagna and pizza had a baby, and the whole family will fight over seconds.

A flavorful stir-fry dish combining tender chicken, crisp vegetables, and vermicelli pasta in a savory soy-sesame sauce. Perfect for a quick weeknight dinner with an Asian-inspired twist.

Great northern bean minestrone with carrots, zucchini, cabbage, tomatoes, and elbow macaroni in a basil-oregano broth. Hearty, thick, and full of vegetables.

This is an old Ruthenian peasant dish, very popular in the Carpathian Alps, as well as here in Fair Oaks, CA. Great for warming the tummy on a cold winter day. This is easy to prepare, and good as a luncheon dish served with salad, or as a first course soup prior to a lighter entree.

A creamy, relatively low-fat recipe using yogurt and peanut butter. Serve it with whole grain pasta or cut the carbs and use just veggies for the base.

Cincinnati-style chili with cinnamon, allspice, and cumin served over vermicelli pasta with cheddar and raw onion. A slow-simmered, warmly spiced take on a Midwest classic.

Pounded chicken breasts dredged in Parmesan flour, pan-seared golden, and baked under a from-scratch sun-dried tomato sauce with bubbly mozzarella. Served over linguine, this lighter chicken parm doesn't skimp on flavor.

Beefy Italian minestrone soup builds a full-bodied broth from chuck roast simmered with vegetables, then loads it with kidney beans, macaroni, bacon, zucchini, and a quirky splash of cola for caramel depth. Sunday simmer at its best.

My take on this classic Italian belly warming soup.

Cincinnati-style chili with ground beef, cinnamon, allspice, cumin, and tomato paste simmered 2 to 4 hours, served over vermicelli with cheddar and raw onion.

Hearty Italian sausage soup with hot sausage, tomato puree, red wine, bell peppers, and fresh herbs simmered in beef stock. Served over rotelli pasta with Parmesan.

Classic Italian minestrone soup with kidney beans, cabbage, zucchini, green beans, and elbow pasta in a tomato-rich beef broth. A garden-vegetable soup built for cold nights.

Classic Italian minestrone soup with white beans, salt pork, leeks, cabbage, turnip, zucchini, and elbow macaroni. Slow-simmered farmhouse soup finished with grated parmesan.

Veal ragout with red pepper braises cubed veal in white wine, plum tomatoes, and herbs, then finishes with sweet bell pepper and a bright lemon-garlic gremolata over fresh fettuccine.

A convoluted version of Muffaletta salad inspired the the New Orleans sandwich of the same name. Based on a recipe by that Guy on Food Network; a dressed up pasta salad that's packed with loads of punchy flavors and textures then served in Bibb lettuce cups.

This well endowed cheesy macaroni salad recipe is packed with flavor and sized to feed a crowd.