"WTF" Pasta Sauce
Some might call it a “fridge raid” pasta sauce, but we like to call it WTF Pasta, “What’s in The Fridge” (Anything to get a laugh, right!)
This is the perfect meal to use up all those bits and bobs left in the fridge before they become unusable. And if you make enough, you can freeze in portions for another meal when you’re pushed for time. So load it up!
And yes, on a healthy diet, you can still have pasta! With this recipe/concept, the veg laden sauce becomes the hero, not the pasta. I like to use a short dried pasta that will compliment the sauce and be easy to eat, like Casarecce, Fussilli or Penne. There are great gluten-free pastas available now (which I use), pulse pastas or you could even try this with zucchini noodles!
Tip: One of the few times I get my scales out is to measure pasta. It’s so easy to cook too much, then overeat, or waste cooked pasta. I measure out 80g max each person. It’s the perfect amount for us. You might find that 75g is your sweet spot, believe me, it's worth finding out.
As an example, this week’s pasta sauce included:
- 1 onion diced
- 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 1 chilli
- 3 sticks of celery, diced
- 1 zucchini, roughly chopped
- 1 capsicum, diced
- Handful of kalamatta olives
- 3 tins of good quality roma tomatoes, squashed in the pan
- Handful of parsley, leaves and stalks chopped
- 1 tin of tuna
- ½ bag of baby spinach
- ½ bunch of chives
- Fresh Basil and Parmesan to serve
In a large deep sided fry pan, or heavy based casserole dish, cook in order of appearance above, sweating the onions first, then adding the garlic and chilli for a few minutes, then the veggies and tomatoes. Cook this out for 10 minutes or so before adding the tuna spinach and herbs. Season with sea salt and black pepper.
Serve over your favourite pasta with some fresh basil leaves and grated parmesan.
Any remaining sauce can be frozen.
Now this “ingredient” list is purely for illustration. I would definitely always use the onion, garlic and tomatoes, but really you can add anything you like from there. Left over chicken instead of tuna, make it totally vegetarian, add mushrooms, any herbs you happen to have, capers instead of olives. Really, just raid your fridge!