ArcaMax

With kids back in school (in some form or another) and many parents still working from home, it’s a perfect time to add a great-tasting, quick-cooking meal to your recipe rotation. In this one-pot recipe, lively lemon zest, bright peas and summery basil combine with pasta, meat and vegetables for a satisfying, light and lively fall dish.

In the Test Kitchen, we’ve found that the best way to pull off a one-pot pasta dinner is to forgo the standard approach of boiling, draining and saucing the pasta. Instead, we cook the pasta in a carefully controlled amount of liquid that reduces into a flavorful sauce. (Not only does it make for a more cohesive dish, it also dirties fewer dishes.) For this recipe, that optimal amount of liquid was 4 cups for 12 ounces of pasta.

Before we cooked the pasta, we made a flavorful base by taking a few links of sweet Italian sausage out of their casings and browning the crumbles in a Dutch oven with sliced cremini mushrooms. We then deglazed the pot with dry white wine and added the pasta and water. Once the pasta was al dente, we turned off the heat and stirred in frozen peas (no need to thaw), basil, Parmesan, and some lemon zest for brightness.

One final step remained: stirring it all vigorously for a minute. Agitating the components this way knocked starch from the pasta into the small amount of cooking liquid, transforming it into a sauce that lightly cloaked each shell.

In just about an hour, we had a substantial, tasty meal that would please the whole family after a busy day.

One-Pot Pasta with Sausage, Mushrooms and Peas

Serves 4

1 pound cremini mushrooms, trimmed and sliced thin

1 pound sweet Italian sausage, casings removed

2 shallots, chopped

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