Pasta is one of the most popular foods in the United States. It’s estimated that the average American consumes around 20 pounds of pasta per year!
Pasta can be enjoyed on its own, but it’s a staple ingredient in many pasta dishes.
Some of the most popular pasta dishes include:
- Fettuccine alfredo
- Lasagna
- Macaroni and cheese
- Pasta alla Norma
- Pasta carbonara
- Ravioli
- Spaghetti and meatballs
- Spaghetti bolognese
If you haven’t heard of some of these popular pasta dishes, don’t worry – we’ll explain what each one is next!
8 popular pasta dishes
Fettuccine alfredo
This creamy dish consists of alfredo sauce (butter, cheese, and cream), fettuccine, and chicken. Fettuccine Alfredo was created in Rome in 1914 by a chef named Alfredo di Lelio. It was served at his restaurant called Alfredo’s, which is how it got its name!
Lasagna/lasagne
(Whether you spell it with an a or an e at the end, it’s the same thing!)
Lasagna is a layered pasta dish using lasagna sheet noodles, a variety of cheeses, ground meat, tomatoes, and other ingredients that are baked together into melted goodness.
There are a lot of varieties of lasagna out there, such as Mexican lasagna (meat is layered between tortillas instead of pasta) and veggie lasagna which contains no meat. Some gluten-free varieties use thinly sliced zucchini instead of noodles, too!
Macaroni and cheese
Mac and cheese is a kid favorite and a prime comfort food! Macaroni noodles are short, tube-shaped noodles and are the most common type of pasta used for mac and cheese, but you can use any pasta shape including shells, elbow noodles, and other short pasta shapes.
The cheese used to make the sauce for macaroni and cheese can vary too, such as cheddar, parmesan, gouda, and more!
Pasta alla Norma
Pasta alla Norma originated from Sicily and consists of roasted or fried eggplant, marinara, and basil. It can be made with different pasta shapes like ziti and rigatoni.
Authentic pasta alla Norma is made with ‘ricotta salata’, which is an aged, saltier, and harder version of regular ricotta.
Pasta carbonara
This dish is made with pasta (usually spaghetti or linguine), eggs, hard cheese, bacon, and black pepper. The preferred type of cheese for pasta carbonara is Pecorino Romano, but parmesan can be used as well.
Ravioli
Ravioli is the most popular kind of stuffed pasta and is usually filled with cheese and spinach. The stuffed pasta can be coated in red sauce like tomato sauce or creamy white sauce like alfredo sauce or bechamel.
Spaghetti and meatballs
This favorite meal originated in the United States by Italian immigrants and consists of spaghetti, tomato sauce, and meatballs.
Spaghetti bolognese
Bolognese sauce is a type of sauce that is heavy in meat and lighter in tomatoes than pasta sauce or marinara sauce. Bolognese sauce is unique and different from other meat sauces because it includes milk, celery, and carrots, whereas other meat sauces don’t typically contain those ingredients.
Bolognese sauce is also referred to as ragu (meat sauce) or ragu alla bolognese (bolognese means ‘meat sauce’ in Italian).
FAQs:
Some of the most popular pasta dishes are macaroni and cheese, lasagna, and spaghetti (with meatballs or a meat sauce).
Spaghetti is likely the most popular pasta shape in the United States. It’s versatile and can be used to make spaghetti and meatballs, spaghetti bolognese, baked spaghetti, and more!
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