This Easy One Pot Pasta provides the quickest meal time solution on those busy nights! I love one pot meals because everything can be cooked in one skillet or cooking pot, is an easy dinner to put together and lessens dishes and kitchen clean up! This one pot pasta is a delicious pasta recipe with meat sauce and pasta of choice (fresh pasta would be divine and cut down cooking time!) and goes great with salad and garlic bread. It is a complete meal, which is deliciously fantastic!
Pioneers often cooked one pot meals because it was the easiest on the wood cook stove or over the open fire. It also was simple and convenient to toss a bunch of ingredients into one pot, adding more vegetables if needed, to create a meal to feed the whole family! One pot meals like stews and soups always seem to go much further! Though pioneers may not have had conventional pasta like we use today, they did make their own homemade noodle, which would also work wonderfully in this dish.
Let’s get started!
First off, add onion and garlic to large skillet or saucepan with a splash of oil along with salt and pepper.
I then added the ground turkey to the raw onion and garlic. Scramble-fry ground turkey until it browns and is no longer pink. You can use any ground meat you prefer.
Cook turkey until both the turkey and onions have lightly browned.
Next add pasta sauce, water, Italian seasoning and pasta of choice. I decided to use macaroni. Cook 8 minutes, covered.
Add bell pepper and sundried tomatoes.
Cook until pasta is tender. If needed, add extra water or even chicken stock/broth. I cooked for another 10 minutes to help develop the flavors and cook down the sundried tomatoes. I find the sundried tomatoes taste so much better when they have been cooked in the sauce for a bit.
Once pasta is cooked and most of water has cooked out, add spinach. Remove from heat.
Stir until spinach wilts.
Once spinach has wilted, I add a sprinkle of dried parsley, a bit of salt and pepper and another sprinkle of Italian seasoning. You can also add chili flakes or cayenne if you like.
I added a bit of shredded sharp cheddar cheese and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese as well as another pinch of dried parsley. Fresh parsley at this point would be great as well.
Mmmmmm….does that not look delicious? It is like regular pasta with meat sauce crossed with a homemade hamburger helper style meal! I love how quick and easy it is to prepare and tastes delicious! This would be an excellent meal for kids learning how to cook to make for the family!
Serve with salad and an extra sprinkle of cheese if you like. For our salad, we tossed lettuce in the bowl with yogurt, parsley and a sprinkle of shredded sharp cheddar cheese along with dill and bacon bits — super easy and delicious!
One Pot Pasta
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb ground turkey
1/2 tsp salt
sprinkle pepper
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 cup pasta – we used macaroni
1-1/2 cups water
2 to 4 sundried tomatoes, diced
1 bell pepper, chopped – we used yellow, but you can use any color
3 cups chopped spinach
1 tbsp dried parsley
1/2 cup shredded cheese
sprinkle parmesan cheese
Cook onion, garlic, turkey, salt and pepper together until browned, and no longer pink. Add Italian seasoning, pasta and water. Cover. Cook about 8 minutes or until pasta is cooked. Add sundried tomatoes and bell pepper. Add more salt, pepper and Italian seasoning if needed. Cook 10 minutes (because I find the sundried tomatoes give better flavor when cooked longer). Add spinach and stir until wilted. Add cheese and serve with salad.
enjoy from Our City Homestead to yours