Felicity Cloake’s piece last month on Britain falling out of love with shop-bought pasta sauce garnered more than 1,000 shares and twice as many comments. Proof – if it were needed – that when it comes to sating our collective hunger, pasta enjoys a default position few other foodstuffs ever will.
What is less obvious, though, is why ready-made pasta sauce became so comprehensively embraced in the first place for there to be such a nationwide falling out. Making your own sauce from scratch, as Cloake put it, is laughably simple. And many take little longer than the time it takes to boil the pasta itself.
So here are our pasta quick fixes, perfect for the midweek post-work scramble to get dinner into tiny tummies before all semblance of domestic composure is permanently obliterated. They’re just ideas, endlessly adaptable, so long as you have a few things in your fridge and a few tricks up your sleeve. Any veg, steamed (broccoli, sweet potato, butternut squash) or roasted (tomato, cauliflower, beetroot), can be mashed in to a paste and enlivened with garlic, capers, olives, lemon zest; even miso.
Be sure to drain your pasta over a bowl: the cooking water is a useful thinner for thick sauces. Thin sauces can be thickened with cream of any kind – cheese, cream cheese, tahini ... Herbs and toasted nuts (hazel, pine, walnuts, almonds) bring colour and flourish to plated pasta. And with olive oil, salt, lemon juice and parmesan on the table, you’re sorted.
1 Sweetcorn
Stir a drained canful with one of tuna into a pan of seasoned bechamel. Mix in a handful of chopped curly parsley and some grated parmesan.
2 Cherry tomatoes
Roast a punnetful until caramelised and collapsing. Mix with steamed spinach and toasted pine nuts. Season and dress with olive oil.
3 Beetroot
Roast until tender (or use ready-cooked) and mix with seasoned cream cheese, toasted cumin seeds and lemon juice. Garnish with dill.
4 Sweet potato
Steam thick rounds until tender then mash with tahini and sweet white miso. Garnish with finely chopped chives.
5 Aubergine
Char whole in a dry pan then bake at 180C/350F/gas mark 4 until completely soft. Scrape flesh from skin, chop finely and mix with lemon juice and zest. Garnish with crumbled feta.
6 Broccoli
Steam florets until tender then fry in olive oil with garlic and chilli flakes, mashing everything together. Stir in lemon zest and juice.
7 Cauliflower
Roast half a head until tender and slightly charred. Mash with creme fraiche and lemon juice, season to taste and garnish with toasted hazelnuts.