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There are some items I suspect we’ve all stocked up on recently, like rice, beans, and pasta. We’re all about those non-perishables. Whether you eat all your quarantine supplies during actual quarantine or after, you’ll probably find that you have a surplus of some things, like pasta, and if you don’t find creative ways to use it, you’ll grow tired of it before it expires.
Pasta is actually a very versatile food. It can do so much more than the traditional spaghetti and Bolognese or macaroni and cheese. There are so many different types of pasta, from the dozens of shapes like fettuccine, tagliatelle, rigatoni, and lasagna to the many different ingredients like, of course, white flour but also brown rice, potato, lentil, and chickpea. The rise of the gluten-free diet has borne many delicious gluten-free pastas that actually offer more nutrition than the traditional stuff, and present interesting flavor profiles that open up the possibilities for recipes.
If you are staring down boxes and boxes of pasta that you bought for your quarantine, but now couldn’t possibly stomach one more bowl of spaghetti in red sauce or fettuccine Bolognese, know that there are other ways to use this food. It tastes great in several types of cuisine—not just Italian—and can be cooked in a lot of ways other than simply boiled. You can fry it, you can eat it cold, you can turn it into a casserole, and you can put it in a soup. It’s important to be creative with your recipes so you don’t throw away an ingredient, just because you think you’re out of ways to use it. Throwing away food is always a shame. I’m regularly looking for ways to minimize that. Here are creative things you can do with your pasta and noodles.
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Spaghetti fritters
All you need to do to make these is toss your cold pasta up with some beaten eggs to help the noddles stick together. Form little cakes with the mixture, and fry. You can add things like cheddar cheese, chives, or bacon bits. Just flip the small fritters over when they become brown and crispy.
