Eighteen Quick Pasta Dishes and Five for Company

It’s hard to remember what we did for quick and satisfying meals before pasta. Of course there was always pasta—macaroni with cheese and ravioli in a can—but nothing like the vastly extended variety we enjoy today. Because it’s quick to cook, inexpensive, wholesome, and delicious, pasta has become one of our most important foods. Pasta makes a satisfying meal in itself, and for some people there’s pasta for dinner night after night, without monotony. For the sake of variety and their good, hearty textures there are three baked pasta dishes that can, at least in part, be assembled a little ahead of time or multiplied to serve a crowd. But for the most part these dishes are substantial enough to make a meal and simple enough to do so with ease, often in the time it takes a large pot of water to boil and the pasta to cook.