20 Easy Pasta Side Dish Recipes
Easy pasta side dishes for delicious dinners fast: These simple pasta recipes are perfect for adding to your plate with a meaty main dish or you could chop up the protein and stir it right in for a quick pasta bowl.
One of my best meal planning strategies is to start with picking my main dish and then rotate through my easy starchy side dishes: pasta, potatoes, bread, and rice.
When I'm extra tired and I need an easy dinner win with my kids, pasta is the side dish of choice.
I have several basic pasta recipes that work perfectly as a side dish alongside baked chicken, shrimp, pork tenderloins, or fish. Add a salad or green veggie and dinner is done.
Sometimes when I'm extra tired, I'll just chop up that cooked protein and stir it right into the pasta for a one bowl dinner I know everyone at the table will love.
These are my best pasta recipes for mixing and matching with your favorite protein to make countless family dinners even on your busy nights.
My Top 5 Favorite Prepared Pasta Sauces
When serving pasta as a side dish, it is very helpful to keep a stash of prepared pasta sauces in your pantry or fridge. This makes meal prep go so quickly and as long as you've got pasta on hand you're half way towards a solid dinner.
Here are the ones you will always find in my kitchen:
- Prepared Pesto: I think the Kirkland brand pesto from Costco is hands-down the best. I love the huge budget-friendly jar it comes in. We use it for everything.
- Basic Jarred Tomato Sauce: I tend to buy the 2-pack of Rao's brand marinara while I'm at Costco. I use it to make my quick chicken bolognese recipe all the time.
- Spicy Jarred Tomato Sauce: If you've never tried it, I strongly recommend looking for an "arrabiata" pasta sauce, which means "angry pasta" in Italian. If I'm using plain marinara, I almost always add crushed red pepper flakes for heat.
- Butter and Garlic Salt: Buttered noodles with a pinch of garlic salt is a staple in any family's pasta routine.
- Olive Oil: If you're planning to make a main dish with a sauce like my Italian meatballs in tomato sauce, just coat your pasta in a drizzle of olive oil so the noodles don't stick together.
Best Pasta for Your Pantry
When you scroll through my pasta side dish recipes below, you will need a variety of pasta shapes to keep on hand. Here are the pasta shapes you will always find in my kitchen:
- Short Pasta: I always have bags of penne, farfalle, and macaroni from Trader Joe's. It's a budget-friendly brand that cooks up nicely and their macaroni size is essential for making homemade mac and cheese.
- Long Pasta: No one in my family tends to prefer traditional spaghetti. I know, we're weird. When I want a long noodle, I use either linguine or fettuccine 99% of the time. I also prefer thin spaghetti and I've even turned my kids into angel hair pasta fans with I am making a light lemon sauce. Match the thickness of your long noodle to the heartiness of the sauce. A wider noodle will hold up to a peanut butter-soy sauce while a thinner noodle is perfect for garlic butter.
- Filled Pastas: I buy the cheese tortelloni from Costco during every trip. It is a budget-friendly way to keep this meatless but protein-packed pasta on hand. You can also find good options for frozen ravioli if you prefer yours filled with beef.
Best Easy Pasta Side Dish Recipes
For each of the pasta recipes below, I've also included the meaty main dish or veggie mix-in that they would taste best with.
As you scroll through the list, you'll have dozens of different dinner ideas from just a few simple side dish recipes.
Alfredo Pasta
Pair my creamy alfredo sauce made with cream cheese with your favorite long or short noodle. I prefer linguine but my daughters love when I use farfalle.
We love alfredo pasta as a meatless recipe, especially as a dinner during Lent.
During the rest of the year, I can easily turn it into a chicken alfredo pasta with diced up cooked chicken stirred right in.
After Easter, I love to use leftover spiral ham to make my creamy alfredo with ham and peas.
Lemon Butter Pasta with Fresh Chives
This delicatel lemon butter pasta sprinkled with chopped up fresh chives has long been one of my very favorite dinners when cooking just for myself.
It was originally intended as a pasta side dish to pair with chicken or fish, but I love to add chopped up proteins right into the pasta bowl.
If you want to serve it as a side dish, you could pair it with baked fish or oven baked salmon. Bake this sheet pan shrimp and vegetables and eat them on the side or serve them on a bed of the pasta.
You could also make chicken tenderloins or air fryer shrimp and serve them on top of the pasta.
Pasta Rosa
My easy pasta rosa with sausage recipe is one that my kids can even make by themselves! A rich and creamy tomato sauce tastes amazing over short spiral noodles like cavatappi.
We love browned sausage in the mix but you could skip the sausage and substitute ground turkey sausage or stir in chopped cooked chicken.
If you want to keep it completely meatless, you could add roasted zucchini on the side.
Make Ahead Mac and Cheese
If your kids are in love with mac and cheese like mine are, you're going to find dozens of ways to put this easy make ahead mac and cheese to use!
I serve it as a side dish at Thanksgiving, as a main dish for a busy weeknight dinner, and I am even famous for sending it to the church potlucks my girls' teen groups have on Sunday nights. There's never a bite left.
This is another excellent vegetarian-friendly pasta recipe that works as a main or side dish.
I love to pair it with BBQ pulled pork or BBQ chicken. Usually you'll find green beans on the side.
Creamy Lemon Garlic Pasta
If you like your pasta on the creamier side of things, you'll love this creamy lemon garlic pasta that is bursting with lemony flavor.
It pairs really well with chicken, shrimp, or fish but I've also enjoyed it with seasoned pork tenderloins on occasion, too.
Cheese Tortelloni with Pesto
This simple dish is always on the menu after our latest Costco run. Make my cheese tortelloni with pesto and use it as a side dish with a rotisserie chicken!
You can grab a rotisserie chicken while you're at Costco or you can make my Instant Pot shredded chicken to keep on hand.
Pair it with
Creamy Farfalle Primavera
You can technically make primavera pasta with any shaped noodle you love but I think the bowtie-shaped farfalle primavera is perfect with all those fresh veggies.
This veggie-heavy pasta dish makes an excellent side dish with seasoned chicken or pork.
Baked Boursin and Tomato Pasta
This easy baked boursin and tomato pasta is a meatless tortellini dish with spinach and tomatoes. It makes an excellent vegetarian main dish on a busy night but you could serve it as an elegant side dish with a meaty main.
If you're making this pasta as a side dish, you could pair it with my crispy baked parmesan chicken and a platter of parmesan roasted asparagus for even more veggies.
Lemon Orzo Salad with Dill
I love to serve my lemon orzo salad chilled in the summertime but it is a lovely Mediterranean side dish to pair with a wide variety of meaty main dishes.
This is a great pasta side dish to bring to a potluck party all year round. If you're enjoying it at home, add some seasoned shrimp, a baked chicken breast, or enjoy it with my romano chicken meatballs.
Fresh Tomato Pasta
When tomatoes are at their peak, this fresh tomato pasta toss can be a wonderful light dinner but it works as a side dish alongside grilled chicken, shrimp, or fish.
This light pasta dish leave the flavors to stand bold on your main dish. Pair it with my seasoned grilled tilapia, a blackened mahi mahi, rum glazed pork, or my favorite tender grilled chimichurri steak.
Goat Cheese Pasta
If you love the creamy tang of goat cheese, you will love this easy goat cheese pasta with baby spinach.
This creamy pasta side dish pairs excellently with a more heavily seasoned or even spicy meaty main. My favorite thing ever is to add a batch of cranberry jalapeรฑo meatballs to the plate but a cajun chicken or Italian herb chicken would work great too.
Peanut Butter Noodles
My easy peanut butter pasta with soy sauce is a delicious Asian-inspired recipe that is perfect on nights you're wanting take out at home.
The best pairing would be to make a batch of my honey garlic chicken thighs for dicing on top of the pasta. Add a pan of roasted peppers and pineapple for even more flavor.
In a pinch, dice up some cooked chicken or use the spicy ground pork from my pork egg roll bowls and stir it into the pasta.
More Meal Planning Tips
Looking for more great ways to get dinner to the table fast? Here are some of my best meal planning strategies:
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