9 Different Ways to Cook Pasta

If you are reading this article then I bet you a buck that you love pasta. When you cook your own food and if you often cook pasta, there will come a time when you'd get bored with what you are cooking and eventually with what you are eating. You will look for something new to cook and eat. In this article I will give you new ideas, not recipes, on what more you can do with this Italian ingredient.

There are many great sites out there that have great recipes for pasta. I could just take their recipes and compile it here and this post would be no different than the others. So I'm giving you ideas of what you can do and it will be up to you on how to figure out the rest. If you have any additions or suggestions, feel free to post a comment.

Pastas can be categorized into seven categories. These are: Long pasta, Ribbon-cut pasta, Short-cut extruded pasta, Decorative shapes, Minute pasta, Stuffed pasta, Irregular-shaped pasta. I could also list here the kinds of pasta and describe them but it would take up a lot of space and deviate us from our topic. So here is a Wikipedia link to the kinds and description: Kinds of Pasta.

Spaghetti is often composed of long pasta. The most commonly used pasta is spaghetti which is where this dish gets its name. Its sauce is red and made of tomato sauce.

You can use these for the sauce:

• Meat balls
• Ground Pork
• Ground Beef
• Bacon
• Hot dogs or franks
• Mushrooms
• Ketchup (yeah, I've seen people use tomato ketchup or even banana ketchup as sauce)
• This may sound weird but I've tried sardines. . . It will taste good if you make it sweet and spicy.

The sauce can also be:

• Sweet and Sour
• Hot and Spicy
• Sweet and Spicy
• Cheesy (You can use cheese – different kinds of cheese, cream, or a bit of milk)

Spices you can throw in them are:

• Pepper (ground black or white)
• Basil Leaves
• Rosemary leaves
• Thyme leaves

The sauce that you use in a spaghetti sauce can also be used with lasagna, elbow macaroni, and many other kinds of pasta. It will still taste great.

Carbonara is like spaghetti except its sauce is white – made of cream. Instead of using tomato sauce, use cream. After you have poured the sauce to the pasta, add an uncooked egg for every 250g of uncooked pasta then let it be cooked by the heat of the newly cooked sauce. Add spices then serve.

You can use canned tuna as meat for this dish. The liquid in the can of tuna would also work great when mixed with the creamy sauce.

Lasagna is a type of pasta that is flat. It is cooked usually by baking it in an oven along with its sauce. The sauce is often made of tomato (although I'm still yet to use white sauce). However, the sauce is dryer than that which is used in spaghetti.

Mac and Cheese uses a cheesy sauce with macaroni. The cheesy sauce can come in packs or you can make them.

How I make them is by:

1. Sauté Garlic and Onion
2. Add meat. You will want to use bacon
3. Add a cup of water and two cups of grated cheese
4. Stir until cheese melts
5. Add a beef broth cubes (The one that can make a liter of broth)
6. Add spices and let it boil
7. Add pasta (or add to pasta)

That's the usual things you can do with pasta. Here are some more creative ideas:

1. Egg Sauce. While cooking your pasta, cook some bacon or ham or ground pork or beef. When your pasta is cooked, drain it then add some batter and two uncooked eggs per 250 grams of uncooked pasta. Let the egg be cooked by the heat of the cooked pasta. If the pasta becomes cold before the egg is cooked. Heat it at low heat on your stove. Add seasonings and spices. You can also add celery.

2. Butter only. After your pasta is cooked, drain it and add butter and mix. Then add seasonings and spices. It is nice served beside bacon

3. Butter and Cheese. Same as above except you add grated cheese in the mix.

4. Sopas. It is known as sopas in the Philippines. It means soup in English. Sauté ground pork or chicken (chicken works best) with onion and garlic. Then you add water and chopped carrots, some cabbage and elbow macaroni (or any kind of short pasta). When the vegetables and pasta are cooked add some milk – powdered, fresh, or canned. A cup per liter would do. Let it boil. Then add pepper and salt. It is great for rainy weather or cold season.

5. I forgot what this is called. I read this at the back of a knorr broth cubes box. It is similar to Sopas but instead of pork or chicken, you use ground beef and instead of milk you use tomato sauce – a little tomato sauce. The pasta is still elbow macaroni. You also will use celery stems instead of carrots and cabbage (I think carrots would still work fine here).

So that's all the ideas I can give you. I'll update this article soon for more ideas. Remember to be creative, be imaginative but not too weird. Unusual is good but weird can make some people lose a bit of their appetite (example of weird: whole fried fish on tomato sauce and pasta, sardines is a bit weird too). There are many great recipes in the internet. Search them, and if you feel adventurous enough, modify them to suit your tastes and the tastes of those who you will cook for.

If you're fond of hotdogs too, check this article out on different ways to cook hot dogs. I hope you enjoyed these ideas!