Italian

This sweet-sour pan sauce is to die for.

Saying these are better than our nonna’s would be a bad idea, but she’ll never know if we just think it…

This is a perfect recipe to make when you have bought too many tomatoes at the market and they are starting to show their age.

This chopped pesto requires nothing more than a cutting board and a knife.

It's not about the number of steps or ingredients in a dish. If you shop smart, buying peak-season produce and quality protein, you don't have to do much at all (like with this easy salad recipe).

Any type of tomatoes will work, though cherry tomatoes hold their shape well. If what you’ve got is a couple of ripe beefsteaks or Romas, cut them into 1" pieces and carry on.

Fregola, a small, toasted Sardinian pasta, is classic with clams, and cockles make a great sub for Italy’s tiny vongole veraci.

Nduja is a spreadable, spicy pork salami that grounds all of the other ingredients, but you’ll get heat from the mustard greens, as well.

We tried this with a lot of different flours, but King Arthur was the best.

You will think this pasta recipe calls for an absurd amount of kale, but it will shrink a ton when cooked.

There is just no getting around the fact that almond paste is indispensable for these meringue-like cookies; it transforms their flavor and helps them brown evenly. Some brands sell in a tube; others will be in a can in the baking aisle. Using the tube is ideal since the canned might be looser, but either works for this recipe.

We found that a couple cracks across the tops of these cookies were worth it in this recipe to ensure they are as light and moist as possible, but resting the portioned dough for the full hour helps minimize getting too many.

Clams vary in brininess and the amount of liquid they’ll release during cooking, so you’ll need to adjust the salt and add pasta water accordingly. To prevent the sauce from getting too salty, we recommend a measured amount of salt for the pasta water. If possible, look for an artisanal dried pasta for this recipe—the rougher surface texture will catch the slippery sauce better.

Think of this butternut cacio e pepe recipe as pasta cacio e pepe...with sausage. It’s comfort food-y, so it could use some fresh greens and/or veggies to help balance it out. Check out step-by-step photos here.

If you don’t happen to have or particularly enjoy pastrami, bacon or pancetta would be a delicious substitute for this minestrone recipe. Check out step-by-step photos here.

These are extra saucy and a little sweet like the original SpaghettiOs, but with grown-up flavors all around.

You don’t need hours to simmer tomato sauce. This recipe shows you how to make an excellent one in 30 minutes, with 5 ingredients, in 1 pan, with very little effort.

Not the biggest fan of lamb? This hearty, soul-warming ravioli recipe will be equally successful if you use beef short ribs instead. Here are step-by-step instructions on how to shape and fill ravioli.

These are jumbo-sized ravioli, and each one envelops an egg yolk, which will run when you cut the pasta open and mingle with the pan sauce. Duh-lish!

Agnolotti is one of our favorite pasta shapes because the little pockets catch the sauce; try a variation with a simple ricotta filling and marinara sauce instead. Here are step-by-step instructions on how to make agnolotti.