Tips and Tricks to Make Best Paccheri Pasta Dishes

Cooking pasta is one of the easiest things teens can do in the kitchen. There are many different varieties of pasta, but you might not be familiar with paccheri pasta. Paccheri, which has its roots in Southern Italy, is tubular shaped large pasta. It is easy to cook, but you can kick it up by adding some cool ingredients. You can buy paccheri pasta online if you cannot find it in a local store.

Here are some recipes to inspire you!

Paccheri Pasta with Sausage

Pasta and sausage is one of the best combinations of paccheri pasta, and when creamy tomato sauce is used in it, then it is even more delicious.

Ingredients Needed

• Italian Sausage spicy – 1 lb
• Diced Bell Pepper – 1
• Tomato Sauce Canned – 15 oz
• Heavy Cream – ½ cup
• Minced Garlic – 3 cloves
• Dried Basil – ½ teaspoon
• Paccheri Pasta – 8 Oz
• Salt and Pepper as required

Instructions

• Cook the sausage in a large skillet on medium heat. Make sure the meat is thoroughly cooked.
• Add the tomato sauce, minced garlic, dried basil, and bell pepper into the skillet until cooked through.
• Once done, add the heavy cream and remove from heat.
• In another pot, boil water and cook the paccheri pasta per package directions. Once done (to your desired softness), drain the water out.
• Now add the paccheri to the large skillet along with the tomato cream sauce and sausage.
• Heat until sauce simmers and then season it with the salt and pepper as per your taste.

Paccheri Pasta with Butter Beans

Buy Paccheri Pasta and butter beans to make this yummy variation on the above dish with sun-dried tomato, butter beans and Italian sausage.

Ingredients Needed –

• Paccheri Pasta – ½ pound
• Butter Beans – 1/16 ounce
• Garlic – 4 cloves
• Italian Sausage – 1 pound
• Sun-Dried Tomatoes – ¼ cup
• Parsley – ¼ cup
• Virgin Olive Oil – 2 Tbsp
• Olive Oil – 3/8 cup
• Chilli flakes and salt
• Pasta Water- 2 cups

Instructions

• Cook the paccheri pasta in salted water and once done drain and reserve the excess water in the cup.
• Then chop the fresh parsley, garlic and sun-dried tomatoes.
• In another large pan, sauté the Italian sausage in the olive oil on medium heat. Once cooked through, remove the sausage.
• Now place ¼ cup of olive oil in the pan and sauté the garlic till it is golden.
• Add and cook sun-dried tomatoes and chili flakes for 1 minute and then add reserved pasta water in it.
• Add sausage, butter beans and paccheri pasta to the pan and thoroughly mix them. Add salt and chilli flakes according to your taste.
• Once cooked, you can add parsley and top with extra virgin oil.

Paccheri Pasta with Burrata Cream, Saffron and Guanciale

If you are already an experienced cook and want to try even fancier ingredients, try this! In this pasta recipe, you have to make burrata into a cream and then toss saffron and crisp guanciale to make an excquisite pasta dish.

Ingredients Needed

• Fresh burrata cheese – 8 ounces
• Pancetta, slab guanciale, bacon minced – 4 ounces
• Minced yellow onion – 1
• Paccheri pasta – 8 ounces
• Saffron thread – 1 pinch

Instructions

• Add saffron to half cup of hot water and then let it soak for 15 minutes.
• Divide the burrata in half, leaving one half out of the brine and the other half with all the reserved brine to make the cream sauce later.
• In a large pot, add water and a pinch of salt and bring to boil. Add the paccheri pasta into it and let it cool. It won’t be fully soft at this stage.
• In a large pan, heat a small amount of oil and then add the onion and guanciale. Cook until the onion is golden brown and the guanciale is crisp.
• Once done, add saffron water to it and then stir it thoroughly.
• Then you need to drain the extra water from the cooled pasta and add it in the pan.
• Cook over low-medium heat until pasta is cooked through. Add the burrata cream at the very end.
• Serve, and add strips of the other half of the burrata on top to present the paccheri pasta dish in style.

You can serve the above paccheri pasta dishes with salad or bread. Bon apetit!

If you’ve never really learned how to cook and find that you need to now that you’re moving out on your own, don’t worry. This article will give you everything you need. Cooking can be daunting, so you should start off with some simple basics. These food items are going to be quick, and easy. They are also designed to be flexible so that you can change things up. That way you won’t get tired of eating the same thing over and over.

Pizza

You might not think pizza would be an easy thing to cook, but it actually is. The hardest part to get right about a pizza is the crust. But you can make it easy by getting a premade crust. Then all you need to do is add some sauce, cheese and toppings. You can use a tomato sauce if you’re wanting to be traditional, or you can try an alfredo or garlic sauce for a new spin. Toppings can include all kinds of meats, vegetables, and even pineapple if you like Hawaiian pizzas. There are various vegetarian pizza options to try if you want to go meatless. You can even switch out the premade crust for a bagel if you want to make a personal pizza.

Pasta

Pasta is so easy to cook. All you have to do is boil some water, add the pasta, and then set a timer. Set the timer based on the instructions on the pasta package. When the timer goes off, take a small piece of pasta, run it under cool water, and then give it a taste test. If it’s too hard, let the water boil a little longer. If it’s too soft, use less time on your next meal. When it’s cooked to perfection, you can add all sorts of toppings and sauces depending on what you’re feeling. You can make spaghetti and meatballs. You can make macaroni. You can make cheesy ziti. There are lots of pasta salad recipes. The options are truly endless.

Hot Dogs

Hot dogs made this list because they are so easy and somewhat versatile. Most hot dogs can just be boiled or thrown in the microwave. Some even come pre-cooked. If you choose to use the microwave, make sure to poke holes in the hot dogs first. But, for the best taste, you should grill them. Leave them on low heat and rotate them until the surface is slightly seared. Once they are cooked, you can eat them plain, or with a hot dog bun. You can add all sorts of different condiments. Ketchup, mustard, ranch, mayo, relish, chili, cheese, onion, pepper, the list goes on.

These three meals should get you started, but don’t stop learning to cook there. Even though there are so many ways that you can cook these items, you eventually are going to want to branch out into finer endeavors.  Try some casseroles, steaks, or desserts.

Read this next: Easy Recipes for Teens To Make from The Twin Chefs Lilly and Audrey Andrews – Plus Interview!

Teens today are overloaded with choices, and it can be hard to decide on the best choices. It’s also hard to try to live a life that hurts that least amount of people and things as possible, but many people still try to live a life like that. With so many food options today, it’s easy to grab for some quick and easy food option that is loaded with fat, calories, processed sugars, artificial colors, and artificial flavors. It’s understandable that living in today’s hectic world leaves many teens already juggling school, part-time jobs, relationships, and future life plans. This is a full plate as it is. How can adding eating healthy be added to the list without causing additional stress? Everyone knows they’re supposed to eat healthy, or eat smart, but what does that actually mean? A good place to start is thinking about eating ethically. This can begin with something as simple as choosing the right egg.

Why Ethical Food Matters

There are numerous reasons why ethical food should become part of a teen’s diet at this important stage of life that will in part determine the more immediate courses their lives take. Besides the good personal feeling of knowing that good quality eggs are coming from chickens raised in an ethical manner, there are good habits that you can learn from the perspectives of ethical treatment, ecology, sustainability, and overall quality of the chickens’ lives and, in turn, quality of the eggs.

Start Good Habits Early

Whether it’s good study habits, respect for elders, helping out neighbors, or learning other good values, as a teenager, you probably care about becoming better-equipped for adult life in addition to leaving this world in a better state than you found it. Getting the proper nutrition, staying out of trouble, working hard, putting forth your best effort at anything that’s worthwhile, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle are things you’ve likely heard about from parents and teachers again and again. This can be taken a step further without much more effort by learning to think critically about where the food that is supposed to nourish you is coming from, how it’s prepared, and whether or not it’s ethical.

Chickens Also Have Working Conditions

When many consumers look at where other goods are made in the world and how they are made, such as shoes, clothing, and electronics, it’s so easy for many to become appalled by the working conditions under which these products are made. While many would agree that it’s unreasonable for these laborers to work in some rather grueling conditions, it’s also unreasonable for animals that produce food to have unpleasant working conditions. The production of ethical food encompasses taking care of food-producing animals, and that includes chickens.

This is the Root of Early Farming

The farming portrayed in TV shows and movies tends to reflect the traditional farming methods that have been replaced by much of the mechanized world. Farming methods from the past are sometimes the best, and that is especially true when considering the ethical implications of raising chickens for their eggs in a manner that is inhumane. When farmers are able to do their jobs ethically, this benefits the overall health and well-being of the generations living today and the future generations that will eventually be raised by today’s teens.

An ethical farm that produces ethical eggs is a place where you would leave happy seeing how your food is made. You would not even have to think twice before grabbing and taking the eggs home to your kitchen. These are eggs raised in the traditional farming methods that support the chickens, give the farmers some peace of mind, and provide you with the nutrition you need now and for the rest of your life.

How Technology is Making it Easier

When taking a simpler approach, it’s seemingly common to think that technology can sometimes complicate life, but that is not the case with today’s chicken coops. Modern chicken coops are mobile, and come with a whole host of features to make them more energy efficient, and to help the chickens be more comfortable. After all, healthy and delicious eggs come from happy chickens. In addition to reducing energy costs in production, choosing ethical eggs translates to benefits for environmental sustainability and overall health for both humans and chickens.

Feel Good About Where You Get Your Food

Many teens have to take some sort of food class in their schooling experience and usually they have to watch some video about the behind the scenes of the food industry. There have already been some rather appalling stories about food production through documentary or other journalistic endeavors. These reports range from horrendous conditions for livestock to gross stuff winding up in various food products. With ethical eggs, those stories are nonexistent because the chickens are treated right and fed right, which results in eggs that taste great and give many consumers a better feeling about how the food was made.

Think Ahead Seven Generations

Sometimes it’s hard for teens to think of anything more than the day or current moment they are living in. With so much living in the moment that is common today, it’s easy to not think about long-term effects of decisions. The members of native tribes were traditionally taught to think how their choices would affect people seven generations into the future. With that thought process, please think ahead seven generations about how your choice of foods like eggs will affect the quality of eggs for those in future generations, especially considering those generations will be your children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and so on.

Feel Better Physically and Emotionally with Ethical Food

Teens are very good at noticing details or things that don’t feel right. Many consumers today can already tell a difference in taste from other foods that are organic or made without synthetic dyes and flavoring. The natural methods of growing and producing food tend to be preferred by consumers, even when the price is a little higher. You wouldn’t expect cheap food to taste great nor to be produced in a manner that is ethical and sustainable, so know that even though there is a slight difference in price, there are many greater benefits to eating ethical foods that include much better taste.

Something so common as the egg is easy to take for granted, especially with so many conventional options at various stores. It’s time to let good habits take root now during your life as a teenager. Technology has its place, and while it should not always be in one’s hands (especially while driving), it does help make it easier to choose ethical food options that make it possible to have happy eggs come from happy chickens.

Here are a couple articles about healthy eating that we think you’ll also find interesting!

• Beyond Pizza and Starbucks: Healthy Food Tips For Teens

• 10 Simple Tips for Teens to Stay Healthy During the Holidays

Now that school is officially back in session… Students are once again faced with confusing chemistry text books, intimidatingly gargantuan novels that have to be read in three days and math equations that make their heads spin. The stress that comes with a new year of trying to earn good grades typically results in students self-medicating with food, and not the type of food this year’s nutrition class tells them to eat.

Foods filled with trans fatty acids and copious amounts of sugar (i.e. cookies, snack cakes, chips, etc) are typically the nibbles students turn to so as to calm their moods for those two to five minutes it takes to eat them. I mean, STRESSED is DESSERTS backward, so people assume that sweets are the cure-all.

Unfortunately, that is not the case at all. In fact, eating unhealthfully will actually cause more stress as these nutritionally void foods cause blood sugar levels to rise very quickly, but then crash just as fast, leaving you lethargic and even more anxious.

After reading all of this, you might be left feeling anxious about being told not to go hang out with Ben & Jerry’s later this evening. However, before you click out of your browser and… MAYBE… Hit the books to get a head start on some homework, here is a recipe that will soothe your stress yet also soothe your need for a sweet treat (without the sugar, trans fat and other filler ingredients that do nothing for your health or anxiety) when you just NEED IT, perhaps after trying to solve what Y equals in your Algebra book!

Teenage Mutant Mint Chip Ice Cream