Pasta recipes

Mom's best spaghetti sauce with Italian sausage, ground beef, slow-browned onions and garlic, tomato sauce and paste, simmered for hours into a deeply seasoned Sunday gravy. Choose your meat or use both.

Granny's slow cooker chili browns four pounds of ground beef with kidney beans, tomatoes, and a spice blend of chili powder, paprika, cumin, and cayenne. Crowd-feeding crockpot classic.

Mexican-style spicy beef stew braises chuck cubes in a tomato, garlic, and roasted green chile sauce until fork-tender. Served with warm flour tortillas to scoop up the rich, brick-red gravy.

Jeff's favorite pizza sauce: a thick, concentrated pizza sauce made with plum tomatoes, tomato paste, oregano, and parmesan. Freezer-friendly and ready for homemade pizza night.

Italian red snapper in brodetto: pan-fried whole fish pieces simmered in a tomato-vinegar broth with onions and scallions, served over creamy bay-leaf polenta. Coastal Italian classic.

Empanadas are Brazil's national appetizer, tiny pies filled with chicken olives, and peas.

Ethiopian vegetable stew (Yetakelt W'Et) with potatoes, carrots, green beans, and tomatoes simmered in berbere and ghee. A warming vegetarian dish ready in 40 minutes.

Herb-marinated braised lamb shanks: shanks rubbed with cumin, coriander, curry, and rosemary, then oven-braised fall-off-the-bone tender with carrots, potatoes, and zucchini in a rich gravy. A one-pot showpiece dinner.

Slow cooker braciole with thin-pounded round steak rolled around Italian sausage filling and braised in tomato sauce for 8 to 10 hours until fork-tender.

Slow cooker osso buco with veal shanks braised in white wine, beef stock, tomato paste, lemon zest, and Italian herbs. Set it and forget it: 10 hours to fall-off-the-bone tender.

Start a fiesta in your kitchen with this scrumptious dish that's easy to make and enjoy!

Braising can turn a tough piece of meat into a tender, fall off the bone, comfort food. I can think of no better example than the classic dish osso buco, made from veal shanks.

Microwave tamale pie with a spiced bean, corn, and olive filling topped with a cornmeal crust. Vegetarian, no oven needed, and ready in 30 minutes.

Slow cooker beef tips with mushrooms and green onions in a rich red wine and beef broth gravy. Set it and forget it for 7 to 12 hours, then serve over hot buttered noodles.

Tuscan-style duck ragu for pappardelle with boneless duck, pancetta, chicken livers, porcini mushrooms, rosemary, and white wine. A rich, slow-simmered Italian meat sauce.

Polenta pasticciata layers firm cooled polenta squares with porcini-spiked beef ragù, plum tomatoes, and grated pecorino into a rustic Northern Italian bake. Lasagne, but with cornmeal instead of pasta.