This creamy pumpkin mac and cheese recipe comes together in one pot. It’s really quite easy to make. You don’t even drain the pasta cooking water.

Thanks to the pumpkin, this dish is extra creamy, golden and flavorful. Naturally, it’s lighter than your typical homemade mac and cheese. On cool fall evenings, this mac and cheese will warm you up without putting you to sleep.

This easy autumnal pasta recipe will delight the whole family. Leftovers reheat well for the next few days, and even freeze well enough for our toddler’s future meals.

This recipe is a derivative of my Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese recipe, which has been a big hit. While that recipe relies on roasted butternut squash for depth of flavor, this recipe calls for canned pumpkin purée.

To make up for the roasted flavor, this recipe benefits from deeply toasting spices in butter—pumpkin spice blend, garlic powder and onion powder. Then, we cook a can of pumpkin purée in the flavored butter for a minute before adding pasta and water. Later on, we’ll stir in some cream cheese, sharp cheddar cheese and Parmesan. The end result is magical.

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Bookmark this simple pasta dish with peas and pesto! It is perfect for busy weeknights and you’ll be glad to have it. I’m so glad to have found this recipe in Gaby Dalkin’s latest book, Take It Easy. She sent me the book when it came out last fall and this recipe has saved us from ordering take-out several nights since then.

This pasta with peas and pesto comes together in under 30 minutes with basic ingredients and minimal fuss. It’s designed for frozen peas and it’s great with store-bought pesto. I can make this recipe with a toddler running around the kitchen, which really says something, if you know what I mean. Grace enjoyed the leftovers for lunch today.

I love how this recipe comes together with just one pot and one bowl. To make it, you’ll bring a large pot of salted water to boil for the noodles. In the meantime, you can quickly defrost frozen peas in a colander by running cool water over them in the sink.

The peas taste so fresh and nice because they are not cooked. Gaby simply instructs us to whisk together a sauce of olive oil, lemon, garlic and Pecorino Romano cheese. Then we mash up about half of the peas into the sauce, leaving the rest whole. Add the warm pasta to temper the garlic, stir in some pesto, and your dinner is almost ready to go. Thank you for this one, Gaby!

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Add this fresh tortellini salad recipe to your weekend menu, stat! It features cheesy spinach tortellini tossed in my all-time favorite green goddess dressing, layered with lemony fresh greens and seasoned spring or summer vegetables.

This pasta dish manages to be light yet hearty at the same time, which is a real feat. It’s quick to make, but looks impressive. It’s versatile, too—you’ll see quite a few vegetable options below. Choose raw vegetables for the simplest preparation, as I did for these photos, or incorporate some quickly blanched vegetables, like asparagus, to expand your options.

My healthy homemade green goddess dressing comes together quickly in the blender or food processor. I suggest doubling the ingredients so you can serve the extra as a veggie dip or refrigerate it for upcoming green salads. It’s really delightful to have on hand.

Choose spinach tortellini over basic cheese tortellini to incorporate even more greens. I hope you’ll give this recipe a try. This vegetarian pasta salad is a real crowd pleaser!

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This butternut squash mac and cheese recipe strikes the perfect weeknight balance. It’s creamy, it’s cheesy, it’s comforting and completely delicious. This mac and cheese is not so rich that you’ll get a belly ache or fall asleep immediately after dinner.

This recipe is redeeming, too—it’s full of luscious roasted butternut squash, which amps up the golden hue without overwhelming the flavor. This mac and cheese is a real crowd pleaser. Our toddler loves it and so do we.

The cooking method is a thrill. This pasta comes together in one pot. You don’t ever strain the pasta. You don’t have to fuss with a béchamel sauce. You don’t have to get out the blender for the butternut.

If you roast your squash in advance, this recipe comes together in about 30 minutes. This is a unicorn of a pasta dish and I’m so excited to hear how it turns out in your kitchen.

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Pizza always makes a bad day feel better, and there’s nothing nicer than a perfect slice of margherita pizza. Now you can make this recipe at home any time the craving strikes!

Pizza margherita, as the Italians call it, is a simple pizza hailing from Naples. When done right, margherita pizza features a bubbly crust, crushed San Marzano tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella and basil, a drizzle of olive oil, and a sprinkle of salt. That is all.

Sure, you could add some tomato if you’d like, but only if the tomato is truly ripe, red and worthy. Authentic Neapolitan pizza margherita doesn’t require fresh tomato. Try making this pizza as written, and you won’t miss the tomato on top. Sometimes less is more.

This pizza is simple, fresh and a guaranteed crowd pleaser. It’s a delight to make and even better to eat. How about pizza tonight?

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Meet my go-to side salad recipe. I hope it becomes yours, too. This simple salad features fresh arugula and the world’s easiest homemade balsamic salad dressing.

This salad truly could not be more easy to make. In fact, it’s so easy that I’ve hesitated to share it with you. It’s hardly a recipe, but one that I make constantly. It’s about time that I bring this method to your attention, you say?

Side salads should be easy to prepare, and this one is so delicious that it doesn’t taste like an afterthought. It goes with just about everything—think Italian entrées like lasagna, sandwiches, scrambled eggs, and even holiday meals.

You can use this salad formula with any type of leafy green, but arugula is my favorite. You’ll eat more healthy greens if you keep this recipe in your back pocket. Here we go!

Watch How to Make Simple Arugula Salad

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Ever roasted cabbage? If not, meet your new favorite side dish! If you enjoy roasted Brussels sprouts, you’ll surely love roasted cabbage, which offers similarly irresistible crispy-caramelized-tender bits.

Roasted cabbage has a lot going for it, and it’s about time I shared my go-to roasting method. Cabbage is easy to prepare for roasting (much easier than Brussels), very inexpensive, and lasts quite a while in the fridge.

Plus, roasted red cabbage adds an eye-catching purple hue to the dinner table. It’s fun, right? This dish would be a vibrant addition to your Easter meal.

Keep cabbage on hand in the vegetable drawer and you can turn it into a simple and nutritious side dish in twenty minutes. I’ll show you how!

Watch How to Make Perfect Roasted Cabbage

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Do you enjoy tortilla soup? It’s one of my all-time favorites! Tortilla soup is fresh and flavorful, earthy and a little spicy. Topped with a big handful of crispy tortilla strips, it’s a light but satisfying meal for lunch or dinner. As a bonus, it tastes even better the next day.

Tex-Mex tortilla soups most often include shredded chicken, but it’s not unusual to find vegetarian tortilla soups in Mexico. I can’t call this recipe fully authentic, though. It’s a delicious variation on classic tortilla soup (Sopa Azteca) that you can make at home any time you get the craving.

In Mexico, you’ll find tons of regional variations and personal preferences for tortilla soup. For this recipe, I added black beans for some heft, as well as a red bell pepper because I love the flavor and texture it provides. I tried to keep the remaining ingredients in line with what you might find in Mexico, but to be honest, I have more personal experience with the Tex-Mex variations I’ve sampled over the years.

This recipe is a fully reworked version of an old tortilla soup recipe on the blog. Perhaps you’ve made that one and enjoyed it, but I tried it again recently and just knew I could build in more flavor along the way. If you want a copy of the original, I’ve saved a PDF of the recipe right here.

This soup is closer to the spin on tortilla soup in my cookbook, Love Real Food, which features an irresistible sweet-and-spicy interplay between sweet potatoes and jalapeño. Give that one a try, too!

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Make this easy red pizza sauce recipe for your homemade pizzas! It comes together with basic pantry ingredients in about five minutes, no cooking required. It’s like magic.

This recipe yields classic Italian pizza sauce for your home-baked pizza pies. Despite its quick preparation, this sauce tastes rich and full of flavor, which further develops during the pizza’s blast in a high-heat oven.

I like my sauce to have a bit of texture to it, and this sauce strikes the perfect balance. Many pizza sauces are either thick and dull or watery and flavorless. Not this one.

I originally developed this sauce recipe for a pizza recipe in my cookbook, Love Real Food. Since I just re-shared my favorite pizza dough recipe, I’m providing my go-to pizza sauce to go along with it.

Both the dough and the sauce come together very quickly, so you can enjoy homemade pizza with minimal fuss. How about pizza tonight?

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As a vegetarian for over a decade, I’ve eaten quite a few veggie pizzas. Truly fantastic veggie pizzas are few and far between. So, I combined all of the elements I’ve enjoyed over the years to create my own “ultimate” veggie pizza recipe. This is the best homemade veggie pizza I’ve ever had, and I hope you’ll say the same!

This vegetarian pizza recipe will delight vegetarians and carnivores alike. It’s fresh and full of flavor, featuring cherry tomatoes, artichoke, bell pepper, olives, red onion and some hidden (and optional) baby spinach. You’ll find a base of rich tomato sauce and golden, bubbling mozzarella underneath, of course.

The trick with loaded veggie pizzas, as many pizza shops seem to forget, is that they require a few extra minutes in the oven to develop full flavor and structure. Don’t stop baking until the cheese is deeply golden in spots. Otherwise, you might end up with floppy pizza that doesn’t live up to its true potential.

Start with my easy whole wheat pizza dough, and this recipe is ready in about 45 minutes, start to finish. This vegetable pizza is quicker and healthier than delivery!

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