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Pasta has a natural duality, simultaneously acting as the base of every college student’s lazy, casual budget meals and the star of the show at many gourmet restaurants when topped with miso brown butter or truffle sauce. The simplicity of the Italian egg dish makes it versatile — and the variety of pasta shapes makes it even more so. One specific pasta shape (imported from small-town Italy straight to the shelves of Trader Joe’s) carries a kind of elegance with it that can elevate even your simplest meals to feel like they were crafted by Michelin-star chefs. So, what is this magical item? Pappardelle pasta nests.
The pasta, which you can find at the quirky grocery chain for $3.49 a bag, are totally organic and made with durum wheat semolina. It’s dried and divided into small nests to make portioning the thick pasta easy, meaning the only steps you have to follow are boiling it for 12 to 13 minutes and picking a sauce and toppings. It might not seem much different from other pastas on the surface, but pappardelle is renowned for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the thickness of the flat strands lends itself to a wonderfully chewy bite. The large surface area of the pasta is also great for thicker, hearty sauces, such as meat-heavy Bolognese or a vegetarian mushroom sauce, since it can hold the weight of the sauce and absorb the flavor in a way that thinner pastas, such as spaghetti or capellini, can’t.
Making the most of your pappardelle
There’s no one right way to serve up any kind of pasta, of course. Some insist that pappardelle’s perfect sauce companion is creamy Alfredo while others say it’s wasted if not combined with one of the aforementioned meat sauces (and still others are more focused on the right wine to pair with pappardelle than the right sauce). If you’ve bought a bag of the carefully crafted pasta nests, but you’re feeling a little lost when it comes to deciding exactly how to use it, we’ve got a few suggestions for you.
In the product description for the pasta on the Trader Joe’s website, the company recommends pairing it with its creamy cacio e pepe sauce, a thick, cheesy, peppery option that makes each pappardelle strand taste smooth and flavorful. If you want something on the spicier side, opt for a tomato-based arrabiatta (although Trader Joe’s unfortunately no longer stocks the fan-favorite pasta sauce). If you’re willing to stray from tradition a little, pesto sauce does a wonderful job of coating the wide surface of pappardelle. Paired with a drizzle of lemon juice, fresh tomatoes, or even a side of salmon, the green, basil-based sauce can transform the noodles into a light summer dish rather than a heavy winter stew. As far as truly underrated pasta sauce choices go, savory, meaty veal shank ossobuco or, on the other side of the spectrum, silken tofu vegan Bolognese, are other great pairings for the shape. They give your dish a unique flavor interesting enough to put it squarely in the category of tasting gourmet.
Dining and Cooking