This recipe is for the times you find yourself looking at your fridge with a vacant stare...
It's a simple formulaic recipe that you can follow regardless of the ingredients you have left at the end of the week, simply pick:
1 Protein (or not, if that's your thing!)
1 Veggie
1 Cheese
1 Onion/Leek/Garlic
1 Pasta
And you can whip up a pretty decent pasta dish in no time!
Use-Up Pasta Recipe Using 5 Ingredients
I explain the formula above, so apply that to whatever you can pull together, but here's what I used:
A few rashers of bacon, diced
1/2 an onion, diced
A few large mushrooms, diced
Cheese – I grated together some cheddar and parmesan
Pasta, I used up some tagliatelle
Get your pasta on the boil – you may want to do this after you've cooked the meat if you are using something like chicken that will take a little longer.
Fry your bacon in a pan until cooked. This will likely release some fat which you can now use to cook the onion in, otherwise add a little oil to the pan.
Once the onion begins to soften, add the mushrooms and cook those down too.
Once the pasta is cooked, keep hold of the pasta water! Add the pasta to the pan with the rest of the ingredients plus 1 big spoonful of pasta water. Combine everything together. Turn the heat off, add the cheese and toss to mix. You can loosen this with another spoonful of pasta water if necessary, but be careful not to add too much at once!
You can season to taste with your favourite herbs and spices if preferred, I added a little black pepper at the end to bring it to life a little.