This is the quickest pasta I have ever made till date. That too with the yummy white sauce! Take my word – you will love me for this! First let me tell you the story behind making such fast forward dish. My planned vacation is coming up in next one week and I have loads of work to finish before hitting the festival time.
Obviously I had to plan for our weeknight dinner – something which I could make very fast and taste delicious at the same time! And here it is – the easiest but absolutely delicious pasta from my kitchen!
I intentionally made vegetarian pasta this time.
Reason # 1 – I didn’t have time to thaw the chicken from the freezer and prepare them for the pasta.
Reason # 2 – there are not many vegetarian pasta recipes in my blog.
But even if you are a meat-lover, trust me; you won’t miss anything in this dish. This creamy and cheesy pasta will win your heart for sure. Use whichever pasta you like and this recipe will be a winner all the time.
I used a short pasta this time – mini fusilli – mainly because I personally like short pasta over the long ones. But white sauce goes perfectly well with any sort of pasta – spaghetti, fettuccini, tagliatelle or any other.
To keep this recipe simple, I added only few fresh basil leaves. You can easily turn this vegetarian pasta to a non-vegetarian version by just adding some cooked/poached shredded chicken. If you want your pasta to have a kick of heat, add some freshly chopped jalapenos!
So you see my point – one simple dish can take on so many make-overs to suit so many different tastes. Don’t be afraid to let your imagination fly as it can create wonders for you! All the best!
- Mini fusilli – 200 gms
- Butter – 2 tbsp
- All-purpose flour – 2 tbsp
- Milk – 2 cups, at room temperature
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Dried oregano – 1 tsp
- Dried basil – 1 tsp
- Basil leaves – handful, roughly torn
- Gouda cheese – 50 gms
- To make the white sauce, take a small non-stick sauce pan and melt the butter in it.
- Lower the heat and keeping the whisk in your hand ready, add the all-purpose flour to the melted butter and start stirring continuously. If you don’t whisk, the flour will burn and you will not get a perfect white sauce. So be little careful at this stage.
- After couple of minutes of whisking, add in the milk. Keep whisking continuously so that all the flour dissolves in the milk giving you a smooth sauce.
- Add salt and black pepper to taste. When the sauce turns thick, remove from heat and set aside.
- Bring a big pot of water to boil and season generously with salt.
- Add the pasta and cook them according to the time mentioned over the packet. Mine was 6 minutes.
- Drain the water out and return the pasta in the same pot in which you boiled it.
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