Noodles and Sauce: Mix and Match Ingredients

So you got the pot with the boiling water, now what? Maybe you're in the mood for some red marinara sauce, or white alfredo sauce. Sometimes it can take a little creativity to mix up your favorite noodle dishes. Here are some fast ingredients for types of pastas.

Base Sauces

Marinara sauce - this is an obvious, and likely on hand ingredient that you may have if your family often makes spaghetti. It is also good for raviolis and lasagnas. This is a red tomato sauce.

Alfredo sauce - this is a creamy, white kind of sauce. It is very rich in flavor.

Cream of Mushroom / Chicken - add this to your noodles and it can really give more flavor than you think. Dress it up with some veggies and meats and you have an easy meal.

Cheese sauce - this is a good as a stand alone (macaroni and cheese) or mixing with meat and vegetables.

Garlic Cream Sauce - this is a mixture of garlic, heavy cream, and some cornstarch. It may not be your every day pasta item but you may have the items needed to make this.

Wines - you can cook your pastas up with wine and add some tomatoes, garlic, and onions and herbs. It may take some trial and error but can be used as a base for cooking your pastas.

Pesto - a rich sauce depending on how it is made. The look of it may scare a few people off because it is green. Some people make this as a dryer addition to a noodle meal, and others may add this to a garlic cream or alfredo type sauce to make the pesto very rich.

Meat

Ground hamburger - this is an easy meat to add to your pastas. This is best for the marinara sauce, cheese sauce, or cream of mushroom or chicken.

Seafood - shrimp and lobster are good additions to a pasta. Some recommended sauces with fish would be alfredo, wine, pesto, and garlic cream sauce.

Prosciutto - this is a pork cut. This is not for everyone. Prosciutto is an Italian word for ham. A suggested sauce with this meat is garlic cream sauce

Veggies

Tomatoes - there's a few ways you can deal with tomatoes. You can either get ready cut ones from the cans, perhaps cut up some cherry tomatoes, or get some sun dried tomatoes. Sun dried tomatoes are just like they sound, they are dried out. They can add a lot of flavor to a pasta dish.