When temperatures start to drop, few things quite hit the spot like an easy pasta dinner, especially on busy workweek nights or during the back-to-school rush.
Ree Drummond, better known as The Pioneer Woman, and Ina Garten are both beloved for their approachable, comforting dishes, making their recipes ideal for a cozy meal that doesn’t require hours in the kitchen.
I made one of each chef’s simplest pasta recipes. Although they used different ingredients and ultimately created very different dishes, both came together with minimal effort, simple ingredients, and required very little cleanup.
Here’s how I made Ina Garten’s and Ree Drummond’s easy weeknight pasta recipes, and which one I’d make again.
Ina Garten’s recipe required just five main ingredients.
To make the recipe, you’ll need:
For seasoning, you’ll need olive oil — and Garten, of course, specifies that it should be “good” — along with salt, freshly ground black pepper, and crushed red-pepper flakes.
First, I halved the tomatoes.
Garten’s recipe calls for 4 pints of cherry tomatoes to serve six people. Since I was making a much smaller portion, I used a pint and a half instead.
After adding the tomatoes to a large mixing bowl, I added my julienned basil leaves and three cloves of minced garlic. I then seasoned everything with half a teaspoon of salt, a few dashes of red pepper flakes, and freshly ground black pepper.
This was virtually the only prep the recipe required. To make it even more weeknight-friendly, you can use jarred minced garlic — because, as Garten famously says, “store-bought is fine.”
To meld everything together, I soaked the tomato mixture in olive oil.
I used about half the olive oil Garten recommends. It was enough to cover the tomatoes and create a “sauce” base at the bottom of the bowl.
I gave everything a good mix and then covered the bowl with plastic wrap.
Garten recommends leaving the mixture at room temperature for about four hours, so resist the urge to refrigerate it. Just before the four hours were up, I made the pasta noodles.
I loved how hands-off the recipe was. Aside from boiling the pasta, it had the same set-it-and-forget-it appeal as a slow-cooker meal.
Once the pasta was cooked, I tossed the noodles with the tomato mixture and finished the dish with grated cheese.
Following Garten’s directions, I added freshly grated Parmesan and fresh basil, then tossed everything together in the same pot I used to cook the pasta.
The Parmesan helped turn the tomato mixture into a silky sauce that clung to every noodle.
This pasta tasted super fresh and was so easy to make.
Marinating the cherry tomatoes in Garten’s mixture for multiple hours gave them a rich, intense flavor, and the olive oil, seasonings, and Parmesan cheese combined to create a rich sauce that coated every noodle.
Even though there was basically no cooking required, it was packed with flavor. However, I did find that the pasta cooled off quickly, given that the tomatoes and sauce were only at room temperature.
Ree Drummond’s creamy Italian-sausage one-pan pasta also relies on simple ingredients, although the list is significantly longer.
To make Drummond’s recipe for one-pan creamy sausage pasta for six, you’ll need:
I first added the sausage meat to a large skillet with the olive oil.
This pasta dish required very little prep, which also meant cleanup was a breeze. Aside from a few utensils, I only had to wash the cutting board and skillet I used to prepare the meal.
I cooked the sausage in a large nonstick skillet, letting it brown before using a wooden spatula to break it into smaller pieces. It became easier to crumble as it cooked, and the whole process took about five minutes.
Once it was slightly browned, I added the diced onion and cooked it until it became translucent.
I then added the seasonings and the garlic. I stirred the seasonings into the sausage and let them toast briefly in the rendered fat to deepen their flavor. A pinch of salt and pepper gave the mixture an extra savory boost.
Next, I added the tomato sauce ingredients along with the uncooked pasta.
The sauce starts with low-sodium chicken broth, tomato purée, and tomato paste. When I first poured everything into the skillet, I worried the mixture would be too thin.
After cooking the pasta noodles in the sauce for about 20 minutes, the sauce thickened.
The biggest win: I didn’t need a separate pot, boiling water, or a colander. The pasta cooked directly in the skillet with the sauce, keeping the entire dinner to one pan.
That meant less active cooking time and far fewer dishes — a real bonus after a long day, when getting dinner on the table can already feel like a chore.
Once the pasta was cooked, I took the skillet off the heat and stirred in shredded mozzarella and mascarpone.
This is where Drummond’s “creamy” Italian-sausage pasta earns its name. As I stirred in the mozzarella and mascarpone, the sauce became even richer and creamier, with long strands of melted cheese stretching through the pasta.
This pasta required more ingredients than the first recipe, but it paid off.
The creamy mascarpone-and-mozzarella sauce clung to every noodle, while fennel seeds and red-pepper flakes brought out the savory flavor of the Italian sausage.
I also preferred it to Garten’s tomato pasta. Garten’s dish was fresh and bright, but Drummond’s felt richer, heartier, and more satisfying for a fall weeknight dinner.
Best of all, the pasta cooked right in the sauce, so there was no separate pot or colander to wash. It delivered the kind of indulgent, comforting dinner I crave after a long day — with almost no effort or cleanup.
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