Rigatoni

A weeknight pasta that utilizes simple pantry ingredients in a luxurious way. 

Alison Roman couldn’t find a baked pasta she liked. So she made one she did. 

Shallow-braised short ribs provide a relatively hands-off path to an incredibly rich and robust ragù. Make sure to cook the soffritto until the vegetables are completely tender, which is key to releasing all of their flavor.

Think of this weeknight-friendly pasta recipe as a lighter take on the classic Italian ragù that features cherry tomatoes, a red chile for some heat, and tons of fresh basil.

This spicy, sweet, and punchy pasta salad is perfect for a hot summer picnic when you need your dishes perfect at room (ahem, air) temperature.

Built of toasted nuts, creamy ricotta, and salty Parmesan, you don’t even need a food processor to make this riff on the normal pesto you know and love.

No, this isn’t some kind of joke, and you don’t have to be a vegetarian to love what’s going on here.

Cheesy, saucy baked pasta is even more fun when you can slice it into wedges.

A simple sauce of juicy, bursty cherry tomatoes (aka nature’s Gushers) that comes together in around 15 minutes.

You're probably boiling your pasta too long.

This weeknight-friendly pasta uses one skillet, one pot, and plenty of cheese.

The assignment: A satisfying, creamy, crave-worthy baked pasta that would still be delicious without (most of) the cheese. Nailed it!

Our favorite and best method of making pasta—the same one the pros use in restaurants—is one in which the pasta finishes cooking in a glossy sauce made by emulsifying cheese into the pasta cooking liquid. It’s so easy and good it might change your life (or if not your entire life, then definitely your weeknight pasta game).

The genius of this pasta recipe is in the contrast of the textures and flavors. If spicy isn’t your thing, sub in any fresh sausage you like.

If your largest skillet isn’t large enough to hold 12 oz. pasta and toss everything together, dump the mixture back into the pot from cooking the rigatoni and toss.

Both guanciale and Pecorino are quite salty; Leonardo Vignoli, the chef at Da Cesare al Casaletto, recommends undersalting the pasta water to give you more control.

The butter (yep, a whole stick) mellows the tart lemon sauce and is key to the finished texture.

Any short, tubular pasta will work with this meaty ragù. We used sedanini ("little celery") on the cover, but easier-to-find rigatoni and penne are great, too.

In Rome, chef Barbara Lynch ate the perfect carbonara: The sauce was bright yellow from fresh eggs, and each rigatoni hid cubes of fatty guanciale. This is her recipe.

Featuring paccheri rigati, a ribbed, tube-shaped pasta, this over-the-top casserole cooks in a 9"-diameter springform pan. But feel free to use rigatoni and a 9x9x2" baking dish instead.

Mix up your weeknight pasta routine with this recipe for rigatoni with tender calamari and shrimp in a buttery clam juice sauce.

This hearty, veggie-filled rigatoni recipe requires a little bit of work, but makes plenty for a group and is full of flavor.