‘One-pot’ pasta recipes are everywhere, but what exactly is all the fuss about and are they really such a great idea?

Quick answer? I think there are actually very few recipes that work perfectly as ‘one-pan’ pasta dishes, where the pasta is cooked from scratch in the sauce or alongside other ingredients. Here's why.

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From a cooking point of view, one-pot pastas are actually a spectacularly terrible idea - the ultimate ‘potluck’ meal.

Why? Because the moment you add uncooked pasta to the entire quantity of your sauce or other ingredients, you begin to lose control over the final consistency of the sauce. How dry it is, how wet, how starchy, how oily. You might get lucky and have your pasta reach perfect when the sauce is just right too - but chances are, what you end up putting on your plate will be something of a compromise.

And that’s precisely the reason why there’s a better way to cook the majority of pasta dishes. Simply part-boil the pasta in its own pan and then transfer it to the sauce to finish cooking it. Just like a ‘one pot’ recipe the pasta will combine with the sauce and absorb plenty of its flavour. But, crucially, you avoid under or overcooking the pasta AND you’ll get the perfect consistency sauce for the ingredients or type of sauce you’ve used.

mantecatura

You may have already heard of the Italian cooking term ‘mantecatura.’ Translated literally,

It means ‘to cream’ (like when you’re making butter!) - but when it’s used in relation to making pasta, it refers to this process of finishing the pasta in its sauce, with the addition of starchy pasta cooking water.

However, all types and varieties of pasta and different types of pasta sauce need varying degrees of mantecatura - the type of sauce and the ingredients you’ve used in your sauce will also determine whether you need to do your mantecatura on or off the heat.

Again, all of that is another reason why cooking in a ‘one pot’ style isn’t the perfect, universal cooking technique for the majority of pasta dishes.

Strictly speaking, though, the Italian cooking technique used in one pot dishes isn’t even ‘mantecatura’ - it’s ‘risottatura,’ which broadly translates as ‘cooking in the style of a risotto.’ And if you’ve never made a risotto before, it involves cooking the grains of rice from raw together with all the other ingredients in the dish. It’s the reason that a properly cooked risotto will be pleasantly creamy and flavoursome - and remember it’s almost impossible to make a risotto TOO creamy.

Cooking pasta is a little different, though… especially when you realise that if you decide to cook pasta by risottatura, you will always get - and have to accept - the starchiest sauce that type of pasta will create.

Are there any one-pot pasta recipes worth cooking?

Of course it’s worth experimenting with one-pot recipes, for the sake of variety alone. Just don’t cook all of your pasta dishes that way or think that ‘one pots’ are worth doing because you’ll be saving on the washing up.

Just to be clear - I'm really not trying to put you off cooking pasta with heavy mantecatura - but do be aware that if you follow most of the recipes doing the rounds on social media at the moment, you won't be as in control of the final result as you might like to be!

Instead of one pot, live dangerously, use TWO and brace yourself for all that extra washing-up.

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spaghetti all’assassina

A bizarre variation of a basic Pasta al Pomodoro from Puglia, Spaghetti all’Assassina’ is a one pot pasta recipe with a carbonised twist. If you like the crispy bits on lasagne or baked pasta, you’ll love this!

Just like a risotto, the pasta is cooked from raw in tomato passata, water and chillis. However, instead of letting it develop a starchy sauce, the heat's increased and the pasta allowed to stick to the pan and burn slightly. Some versions I've seen are actually quite a bit more than slightly burnt, but that's a little extreme for me! My version above adds 'nduja melted through the pasta and grated scamorza served at the table, to give extra layers of smoky flavour!

minestrone genovese

You might have seen some of the many recipes for 'lasagne soup' on social media recently. Instead of making one of those and turning your pasta into an overcooked pile of baby food, try this tweak to this classic regional Italian recipe.

In Genova, minestrone's green and there isn't a tomato in sight - instead, freshly made basil pesto is often stirred through at the table. I've added a Tuscan affectation to my Genovese minestrone, in the shape of pearl barley, which goes in about half way through the toal cooking time. It adds a little starchy thickening but there isn't much of it, so it's barely noticable... however you might consider adding 'orzo' pasta, which is shaed liked grains of barley / rice. Other pasta you could experiment with are torn fresh lasagne sheets or round corzetti.... but add these right at the end of the cooking time and give them just enough time to cook before your serve, otherwise things might get a little too starchy!