The Pioneer Woman's TOP 5 Pasta Recipe Videos | Food Network

[Music] i'm going to make the mac and cheese first because it can stay in the fridge for a while and then i'll bake it later i've got some butter melting on the stove and i'll add some flour to that to make a roux you know when we have birthday parties for the kids around our place we don't have pinatas and 50 kids running around it's pretty much a family gathering another excuse to get the family together and i'm just whisking it together over kind of medium low heat my husband lad has both of our boys out on the ranch doing work he's trying to keep our baby occupied so he doesn't find out the secret about the surprise party you got to hold it up high like this so you get on their backs okay okay you wanna go put the spray truck up all right maybe we'll get something [Music] okay the roo's been bubbling for a few minutes and now i'm going to add the milk whisk it as you add it now this needs to cook for a good five minutes to bubble up so i'm going to add the macaroni to the boiling water i'm making two pounds of macaroni noodles don't be alarmed i have a really large family to feed and then to this white sauce i'm going to add some dry mustard i really like the flavor of dry mustard so i add quite a bit i'm adding four teaspoons but if you're not quite sure how you'll feel about it add two and then give the white sauce a taste and see if you like it then you can always add more now as if the white sauce isn't rich enough i'm gonna make it just a little bit richer by adding some beaten eggs and it just kind of takes it over the top and makes it ultra decadent but before i add the beaten eggs to the hot white sauce i need to temper the eggs a little bit so while i whisk the eggs i'll just drizzle in some of the hot white sauce and just like you don't want to jump into a freezing cold pool you don't want to pour beaten eggs into a really hot pan of sauce or they'll turn to scrambled eggs whisk the white sauce and just drizzle them in slowly [Music] okay the white sauce is really thick it's really smooth and it's really rich with the addition of the eggs i've got a bunch of grated sharp cheddar i'm going to leave off a couple of cups of cheese because we'll need to top the finished macaroni and cheese with it you just need to stir the grated cheese into the white sauce and please resist the temptation to stick a large tablespoon in here and start eating it out of the pot i speak from experience here okay add a little bit of seasoning salt a little bit of seasoned salt this is optional but just use whatever seasoned salt you have in your pantry and black pepper i like to use this what i call black dust and the cheese sauce is done [Music] and in goes the macaroni [Music] this is pretty much all i ate for the first 10 years of my life [Music] it's the only reason i grew as a child because i ate macaroni and cheese okay just stir it make sure all the macaroni is evenly coated oh my gosh this looks so good can i borrow a fork okay it's done now we just need to pour it into the pans oh my gosh i mean this is a lot of macaroni and cheese have you ever seen anything like this in your life i'm almost ashamed but only almost i do kind of wish i'd lifted weights for the past couple of months though this is heavy and then sprinkle the extra cheese on top and that is about the most delicious looking mac and cheese in the world and i think i probably should taste it just to make sure it's okay for my children of course and speaking of the children i hope my baby hasn't found out about the surprise party yet it's his first surprise party so i'm hoping it all goes off without a hitch that is good i'm gonna make a big batch of cheese stuffed pasta shells with tomato sauce they are very very popular in my house now i've been grating up a bunch of cheeses and i'll make the filling for the pasta shells it starts with a whole bunch of ricotta cheese i'm actually making two pans of shells one to pop in the freezer and one to take home for dinner tonight this is a lot of ricotta cheese now for some sharper cheese i've got some grated parmesan and grated romano i also have two eggs and those go right in i'm just gonna get some basil and parsley together this is a really great meatless meal i love it because you can serve the shells with a salad and that's a great meal in itself and then some salt and pepper this is a lot of cheese mixture so it really needs some seasoning and then i'll just use my mussels to get this all combined now part of what makes this so easy is that you can use jarred marinara sauce and i'll just put a little bit in the bottom of the pan just to have a little foundation of sauce and now i boiled a whole bunch of jumbo pasta shells i'll hold it open with my hand and get some of the delicious cheesy filling and then it goes cheese side down in the sauce i'm gonna fill up this pan then i'll do the other one i'll top the whole thing with more marinara sauce just pour it right out of the jar and that is why jarred marinara sauce is so wonderful you just crack open the jar and go for it now cheese again i have a whole bunch of grated mozzarella and it melts so beautifully over the top of these shells now i have some left over romano and parms and it goes on now i'll just cover these with foil and dream about digging into this tonight so just 25 minutes in a 350 degree oven and it'll be nice and hot everyone gets a big helping of shells i just love the way the sauce coats the pasta and a little of the cheesy filling peeps out yum then it just needs some crusty bread a sprinkle of chopped parsley and that's dinner for dinner tonight i'm making chicken mozzarella pasta it is one of my family's favorite dinners it's hearty and delicious and best of all it takes no time at all to make now i'm cooking some bite-sized chicken pieces these are boneless skinless breasts and i cut them into pretty small pieces because that'll make them cook a little bit quicker sprinkle in some salt and pepper okay now i'll let the chicken start to cook and i'll get some of the other ingredients ready i'm going to dice up an onion that's going to go into the pan in just a minute okay now i'll grab a couple of cloves of garlic garlic always makes anything a little bit more delicious okay i got the onions and garlic all ready now the chicken it looks like is ready to come out it's got some nice color on the outside the good thing is the chicken doesn't have to be all the way cooked at this point after i make the sauce the chicken's gonna go back in and finish cooking and that just makes the sauce even more delicious okay got all the chicken out [Music] now i'll turn the heat down just a little bit and i'll put the onions right into the pan with all that wonderful chicken flavor i love making sauces like this where the meat goes into the pan first and then it just flavors everything you put in there after that okay now i'll just stir around the onions and garlic okay now it's time to put the pasta into the water and get it cooking it's boiling and ready to go i'm doing penne pasta but of course you can do rigatoni pretty much any kind of pasta you have in your pantry and that's why i love pasta dishes there are no rules just use whatever you've got okay now let the pasta cook and i'll move on with the sauce the onions and garlic are already starting to turn brown now part of what makes this dish so easy and so quick i use really good quality marinara sauce right out of the jar i use it all the time it's a really delicious shortcut ingredient now i do want it to have a little bit more of a liquidy texture so i've got just the thing i'll reach into my pasta pot borrow a little of the hot water and just put it right into the skillet the pasta will never know it's gone now to give it a little bit of a kick i add some crushed red pepper flakes now i'll just stir that in the last thing to do is just add the chicken back into the sauce and it's going to simmer finish cooking make the sauce even more delicious it already looks good okay now to give it a little green i'll mince up some parsley okay i'll just mince up the parsley sprinkle it right in all right now the sauce just has to simmer for about seven to eight minutes now i've got one thing to add to the sauce and it really elevates this dish from just a basic chicken marinara pasta fresh mozzarella now i'm cutting it into cubes not very big pieces i'll just cut it into sticks they're about half an inch square i'll just sprinkle it right in this mozzarella is a pretty soft cheese so it's going to soften really quickly but i don't want it to totally melt i still want to stay in pretty nice chunks it's just gonna take two to three minutes for the cheese to be perfect all right the pasta is done i love these pasta pots with the built-in colander now put it into a great big bowl i love these huge pasta bowls and then i'll drizzle the pasta with a little bit of olive oil now i like to put a nice layer of parmesan shavings on the pasta before i put the sauce on it just adds a nice layer of deliciousness i'm just using a vegetable peeler [Music] okay i think that's a good amount of parmesan now give the sauce a stir oh the mozzarella is melting it looks perfect and i'm just gonna pour this right over the pasta a lot faster than spooning it wow and the cheese is going to continue to soften okay now i want to add some green to the top and some flavor so i've got some beautiful basil now i just stack up the leaves real roughly i'm not trying to be precise here this is a 16 minute meal after all and i'll just roll them up and just slice them pretty thin and with that dinner is done and in 16 minutes flat i'm making delicious meaty very cowboy friendly lasagna for the guys i'm adding three pounds of ground beef and two pounds of just regular pork breakfast sausage to a big pot and then i'll add about five cloves of minced garlic now i'm just gonna cook the meat mixture until it's totally browned i'm gonna add two 28 ounce cans of diced tomatoes and then i'll add two cans of tomato paste if you have the little cans of tomato paste you'd actually need to add four cans this is one of those recipes that i could seriously make in my sleep because my mom made it so much and i have made it so much all right now i'll just stir in all the tomato stuff and i'm going to add some salt and pepper it's a lot of meat so it needs some seasoning i'll add some fresh herbs later it just needs to simmer uncovered for about 45 minutes okay now i'm going to add half of the herbs to the sauce and then i'm going to save the rest of the herbs for the cheese mixture okay the sauce is pretty much ready so i'll go ahead and make the cheese mixture for the lasagna i've got two big containers of cottage cheese even if you don't like cottage cheese by itself it's delicious in this lasagna my husband would not touch cottage cheese by itself to save his life but he loves this lasagna all right now to the cottage cheese i'll add four beaten eggs and that helps bind the lasagna all together and then a cup of grated parmesan then i'll add a little bit of salt and pepper and mix it all together the cottage cheese mixture is a little more mild than the ricotta flavor so you really really taste the meat and the sauce all right that's all stirred together now i'll just throw in the rest of the herbs the parsley and the basil all the elements are ready and i'm gonna start assembling it i'll lay four lasagna noodles in the bottom of these disposable foil pans all right on top of the layer of noodles i'm going to spoon a fourth of the cheese mixture right over the top so i'll just spread that all over the noodles now on top of the cheese mixture i'm going to lay slices of mozzarella it's just a big old spoonful pretty much on top of each slice of cheese all right and spread that out now i'm going to repeat the layer exactly like the first one [Music] it needs to bake at 350 for about 45 minutes to an hour until it's hot and bubbly i'll leave the foil on so the top won't get too burned [Music] no journey through my history of food would be complete without pasta i cuatro formaggi i'm probably not saying that right basically it's pasta with four cheeses and it is out of this world i absolutely love it now the original didn't have mushrooms in it but i'm just changing it up a bit i've been slicing some white button mushrooms really really thin i want them to cook really quickly now i've got some butter going in a pan and i'll get the mushrooms right in i'm just using regular white button mushrooms but any kind of mushrooms will do now i'll just stir the mushrooms around in the butter and get them going now i want to give the pasta a little bit of a garlic flavor so i'll just grate in one clove of peeled garlic i love these little zesters they're so handy i'll just tap the garlic in stir it around i'm going to put in a little salt and pepper just to flavor the mushrooms now the original dish used angel hair and that's always what i use with this sauce it's just perfect with all of those cheeses so i'm gonna get it going i've got a pot of water boiling i love angel hair pasta because it hardly takes any time to cook just a few minutes i'll just let that sit and get going now to the mushrooms i want to add a little bit of extra flavor so i'll just splash in a little white wine not too much probably just about a third a cup of wine the mushrooms look great they're nice and cooked they've absorbed all the flavor of the garlic and the wine so now i'll turn down the heat and before i add the next ingredient let me just stay for the record this is not a diet dish at all it's very rich and as such i'm adding a cup of heavy cream that is basically the base for the sauce of the pasta oh my gosh cream and mushrooms what a beautiful combination now you can use half and half but the cream is what the original had in it and i like to stick to what i know all right the cream is already hot so i'll grab the angel hair pasta the only tricky thing about this pasta dish is that angel hair cooks in such a short amount of time and you really want to act fast because if it gets overcooked it just turns into a mushy mess all right the pasta goes into the cream and if the cream isn't already hot the pasta will take care of that now before i even stir it i'll add in the cheeses the four cheeses are fontina just a beautiful creamy cheese parmesan of course the king of everything and romano nice and sharp and then goat cheese just soft goat cheese it gives the sauce a nice tangy flavor and i'll just crumble it right in it's going to melt in no time because the pasta is so hot you want to make me happy just make this for dinner for me any night of the week i absolutely love it now i'll just use the tongs to stir this around the cheese is gonna melt the cream is gonna coat each and every noodle now i'm just gonna hope that all the pasta fits on the platter will you look at that masterpiece perfect get those mushrooms in there okay it's absolutely perfect the way it is that i want to make it extra pretty so i'll grab some parsley just to sprinkle over the top this is also delicious with a mix of herbs basil is particularly delicious chives are great pretty much anything you have would be delicious i'll just sprinkle this over all of a sudden i'm 18 again [Music] you

Channel: Food Network

Views: 349,258

Keywords: food, cooking, recipe, how-to, how to make, tutorial, cook, chef, fn, directions, ingredients, eat, recipes, easy recipes, easy recipe, food network recipes, best, simple, quick, the pioneer woman, pioneer woman, ree drummond, cooking at home, home cooking, ranch cooking, farm cooking, farm, party cooking, dinner party, dinner recipe, party recipe, family meals, kid friendly meals, comfort food, food network, top, famous, pasta, pasta recipes, mac and cheese, lasagna, stuffed shells, cheese

Id: vCcCBK7X3Q0

Length: 19min 43sec (1183 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 04 2021