40 Creamy Pasta Recipes With Chorizo, Caviar, Summer Crab, and More
What is it about creamy pasta? We return to these dishes again and again — looking at you, carbonara — for warm, filling, rich, and delicious meals that not only satisfy our appetites but also evoke something like home. These pasta recipes, all creamy, are sometimes cheesy but not always. That creaminess can come from heavy cream (the MVP of this collection) as well as butter (a close second), but also starchy pasta water, or emulsified eggs, or the fresh juice from peak season corn, or a dollop of crème fraîche. All are relatively fast to make, and many need only a few ingredients to come together: more reasons for their enduring popularity.
Creamy Vegan Pasta Primavera
Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Emily Nabors Hall / Prop Styling by Audrey Davis
This creamy spring pasta calls on umami-forward nutritional yeast and buttery macademia nut milk to make a rich, velvety vegan sauce. When shopping, make sure to buy unsweetened macademia nut milk. Serve with a fresh, flinty Verdicchio.
Fettuccine Alfredo
Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Emily Nabors Hall / Prop Styling by Christina Daley
Fettuccine alfredo is the platonic form of creamy pasta. (Is any pasta creamier?) Scatter a mix of crispy panko, garlic, parsley, and Parmesan over the top of this dish of emulsified butter, cheese, and starchy pasta water for a salty, crunchy, herbaceous edge to its iconic velvety swirl of noodles.
Creamy Pumpkin Pasta
Jordan Provost / Food Styling by Thu Buser
Smoky bacon and toasted rosemary level-up this creamy pumpkin sauce to cozy heights. Best of all, it’s ready in under 30 minutes.
Spaghetti Carbonara
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Margaret Dickey / Prop Styling by Shell Royster
We keep coming back to carbonara. The ingredients are simple and few: water, pasta, salt, pepper, meat, cheese, egg. But when they come together it’s like magic — a rich, eggy emulsified sauce showered with salty cheese and studded with crisp, fatty pork. Here the Food & Wine Test Kitchen set out to create the ultimate carbonara, testing different methods and interviewing experts for their advice. We settled on a mix of eggs and egg yolks and a combination of both Pecorino Romano and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. In a dish as fundamental as this one, every step (and ingredient) matters.
Creamy Farfalle with Broccoli Crumble
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer / Prop Styling by Claire Spollen
2019 F&W Best New Chef Misti Norris chars broccoli florets in the oven for extra crunch before adding them to this creamy dish of velvety, alfredo-adjacent pasta.
Creamed Corn Pasta
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Christine Keely
This summer-friendly pasta gets much of its creaminess from fresh corn in this recipe from Birmingham, Alabama, chef Victor King. Maximize the dish’s corny flavor by using a peeler to cut kernels off the cob.
One-Pot White Wine Pasta with Mushrooms and Leeks
Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Rishon Hanners / Prop Styling by Sarah Elizabeth Cleveland
Leeks, mushrooms, and fresh herbs combine with pantry staples to make a weeknight-friendly meal that’s ready in 30 minutes. Creamy and savory, the rich sauce in this crowd favorite from Robin Bashinsky is made with cream, lemon, and white wine.
Lemon-Ricotta Pasta
Jordan Provost / Food Styling by Thu Buser
This dinner party–worthy pasta can be made in an astonishing 15 minutes. The key is a no-cook pasta sauce of blended ricotta, pasta cooking water, lemon zest, and juice.
Yellow Curry Rigatoni
Eva Kolenko
This pasta gets its creamy oompf from coconut milk and its tangy punch from pickle juice and curry paste. It’s inspired by 2024 F&W Best New Chef Wedchayan (Deau) Arpapornnopparat’s dish rigatoni kaeng kari at Holy Basil in Los Angeles.
Creamy Spaghetti Carbonara with Peas and Ham
Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Rishon Hanners / Prop Styling by Sarah Elizabeth Cleveland
Let the carbonara variations commence! This take on the creamy classic substitutes smoky cubes of ham instead of the traditional pancetta or guanciale and adds sweet green peas to the mix.
Spaghetti alla Nerano (Creamy Spaghetti with Zucchini)
Greg DuPree / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Phoebe Hausser
Zucchini is the star of this creamy pasta dish, perhaps the most famous export from the sleepy village of Nerano in Campania, Italy, perched on the westernmost tip of the Sorrentine peninsula. Zucchini can grow abundantly on the rocky, sunny slopes of this seaside hamlet, and this recipe uses heaps of them, thinly sliced and carefully caramelized before being cooked down in a buttery, creamy, startchy sauce.
Chorizo Carbonara
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Emily Nabors Hall / Prop Styliing Claire Spollen
Another creamy riff on beloved carbonara, this version brings spicy Mexican chorizo into the mix. A touch of sherry helps balance the fatty umami of the chorizo with a hint of acidity and sweetness.
Fettuccine with Gorgonzola and Broccoli
Jason Donnelly / Food Styling by Holly Dreesman / Prop Styling by Addelyn Evans
This fettuccine dish is all about funky Gorgonzola cheese. Simmered with chicken broth and white white, this tangy, creamy sauce helps make the vibrant broccoli florets pop. This recipe is delicious with all sorts of crunch seasonal vegetables, such as asparagus or green beans; substitute as desired.
Creamy Mushroom Pasta with Garlic-Miso Butter
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Julian Hensarling / Prop Styling by Christina Daley
White miso melts into garlic butter sauce for a wildly umami-rich creamy pasta dish. A medley of mushrooms are roughly torn into bite-size pieces and cooked in batches to up the crisp and caramelization.
Gochujang Pumpkin Alla Vodka
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Jennifer Wendorf / Prop Styling by Claire Spollen
It’s always pumpkin gochujang season with this alla vodka variation. The savory Korean chile paste balances pumpkin’s natural sweetness in this quick, impressive pasta that is ready in just 30 minutes.
Creamy Camembert-and-Mushroom Pasta
Morgan Hunt Glaze / Food Styling by Lauren McAnelly / Prop Styling by Sue Mitchell
This silky pasta gets its rich, luxurious sauce not from heavy cream but cheese: Camembert. Cheese expert Laura Werlin recommends cutting the rind off this ooey-gooey ingredient when the round of cheese is cold.
Creamy Spaghetti Carbonara
Brie Goldman / Food Styling by Lauren McAnelly / Prop Styling by Sue Mitchell
Anne Quatrano, the Atlanta-based restaurateur and cookbook author, goes all in on this ultra-rich, gild-the-lily carbonara rendition. The gilt here is the addition of nontraditional heavy cream, which makes for an especially luxurious, velvety sauce.
Steak au Poivre Pasta
Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Claire Spollen
A creamy take on the French bistro classic steak au poivre, this peppery dish combines strip steak, crème fraîche, brined peppercorns, Cognac, and a hint of Dijon mustard to serve up an immensely satisfying and flavorful all-in-one meal.
Pasta with Broccolini, Peas, and Pancetta
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Claire Spollen
Chock full of green and fresh dill, chives, parlsey, and sweet peas, this quick-to-make pasta tastes like spring. Ruote pazze, which translates to “crazy wheels” in Italian, is a circular, hub-and-spoke pasta shape that’s perfect for catching up lemony sauce, crispy pancetta, and tender peas.
Creamy Tomato Rigatoni
Julia Hartbeck
This simple tomato sauce is more than the sum of its parts: canned tomatoes, butter, cream, and onion. Cooked just so, it’s sweet and savory, rich and acidic — creating a lush sauce that’s perfect for big, ridged noodles like rigatoni.
Creamy Vegan Pasta with Greens, Peas, and Lemon Zest
Antonis Achilleos / Prop Styling by Kathleen Varner / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey
This beautiful vegan pasta dish is as creamy as it is verdant. White miso adds depth and umami to blanched greens and crisp scallions and garlic. It’s delicious topped with a plant-based cheese, non-vegan Parmesan, or all on its lonesome.
Pasta with Sausage, Basil, and Mustard
Diana Chistruga
British food writer Nigel Slater contributed this spicy, creamy, mustardy pasta dish, which was named one of Food & Wine’s 40 best recipes in 2018. Fragrant basil and crisp white wine bring these flavors together: a tangy, meaty, rich, herby dish that comes together in just 20 minutes.
Summer Crab Carbonara with Lemons and Capers
2020 F&W Best New Chef Douglass Williams shares his take on carbonara: a lemony, briny dish full of decadant fresh crab meat. Serve with a Citrusy Sicilian white wine.
Creamy Baked Pasta with Gruyère and Prosciutto
This baked pasta dish from chef Ashley Christensen of Poole’s Diner swaps béchamel for a more simple sauce of heavy cream, nutmeg, Gruyère, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Thinly sliced prosciutto is served on the side.
Niçoise Pasta
Chef Ludo Lefebvre’s creamy basil pasta Niçoise is not so far from Genova (the home of pesto) in flavor or in geography. Take out the nuts, bring in the cream: This rich, bright green dish is ready in minutes.
Caviar Carbonara
A special-occasion carbonara from Justin Chapple, this fresh pappardelle is tossed in an eggy emulsified sauce that pops with briny caviar and zesty lemon. The fresh noodles can be made at home or sourced from your local Italian or specialty foods market.
Rigatoni with Sausage and Tomato Cream Sauce
Evi Abeler
A classic combination of creamy tomato sauce, toothsome rigatoni tubes, and salty pan-fried sausage comes together in this tried-and-true recipe. Serve with an equally stalwart (and delicious) Chianti Classico Riserva.
Smoked Gouda Carbonara
Con Poulos
This carbonara from Justin Chapple gets a smoky boost from Gouda. The finished dish is an exceptionally creamy, cheesy pasta made rich with crispy slab bacon, lots of egg yolks, and a hint of crushed red pepper. And, it’s ready in only 30 minutes.
Creamy Lemon Pasta
Chef Andrew Zimmern summons the spirit of Campania’s enormous, frangrant lemons with the zest, juice, and sliced supremes of Meyer lemons in this creamy and bright pasta dish. It’s inspired by a dish of lemon pasta he was served at Sorrento’s L’Antica Trattoria. Enjoy with a bright, citrusy Campanian white.
Fettuccine with Shrimp
Andrew Purcell
To cut down on dishes, Justin Chapple cooks down a creamy sauce of white wine, butter, and mascarpone in the same pot that boiled the linguine. Pair this spinach and shrimp-filled dish with a zesty, lemony Italian white.
Creamy Buckwheat Pasta with Wild Mushrooms
Tina Rupp
Chef Matthew Accarrino showcases earthy buckwheat flour in this creamy dish of pappardelle and wild mushrooms. Loaded with fresh mascarpone and runny eggs, the silky sauce ties together leeks, baby spinach, and the buckwheat pasta, called pizzoccheri in Italian.
Penne with Asparagus, Peas, Mushrooms, and Cream
Anna Williams
This veggie-loaded pasta dish boasts the flavors of spring: fresh mushrooms, sweet peas, and crisp green asparagus. A velvety reduced cream sauce makes this an especially rich and filling meal. Try it with a glass of Napa Pinot Noir.
Creamy Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe & Sausage
John Paul Urizar
This creamy, savory dish of orecchiete, broccoli rabe, and hunks of Italian sausage comes from winemaker and filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Served at Rustic, the on-site restaurant at Francis Ford Coppola Winery, it’s best enjoyed with a class of tannic Cabernet.
Pasta with Creamy Pumpkin Sauce and Toasted Hazelnuts
Alexandra Rowley
Canned pumpkin puree meets stovetop mac and cheese in this rich, earthy, and creamy pasta. Sprinkle on top with toasted hazelnuts, chopped chives, and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
Creamy Chicken and Bacon Pasta with Artichoke Hearts and Spinach
Kristen Stevens
Earthy artichoke hearts and green spinach balance out this creamy pasta dish’s salty, smoky, thick-cut bacon and hunks of tender chicken breast.
Frascatelli Carbonara
John Kernick
Chef Michael Romano served this dish of homemade frascatelli at Union Square Cafe in New York City. The dense, spaetzle-like pasta, is served with crispy pancetta in a rich sauce of cheese and cream. It pairs well with a class of Chianti Classico.
Calabrian Carbonara
Christina Holmes
Spicy Calabrian ‘nduja, a spreadable sausage, is the signature spin on this carbonara variation, bringing heat and meaty flavor to this silky, creamy pasta dish. New York City chef Andrew Carmellini serves this with a spice-inflected Calabrian red blend wine.
Pasta with Sausage and Mustard Greens
Bitter mustard greens, sweet Italian sausage, creamy crème fraîche, and the acidic pop of cherry tomatoes come together in this hearty and satisfying pasta recipe.
Three-Pepper Cacio e Pepe
Move over carbonara. This cacio e pepe, another classic of Roman cooking, eschews the eggs for an even more simple, but just as delicious, creamy pasta dish. Here, its emulsion of pasta water, grated cheese, and pepper is given more complexity and subtle heat with the use of three kinds of peppercorns: pink, Tellicherry, and Szechuan.
Creamy Pasta with Chicken and Vegetables
Fredrika Stjärne
2006 F&W Best New Chef Cathal Armstrong loves to make this creamy pasta after a workout. (In fact, he prepares all the ingredients before he leaves for the gym to make for fasting cooking when he returns.) Hearty chicken, fresh vegetables, and a rich eggy sauce will satisfy any hungry belly.
