Pantry Pasta Is the Humble, Comforting Dinner We Want to Eat Every Night

Here's what I look like after I walk through the door after work on a chilly winter weeknight: a shell of myself. Here's what I'm wearing: a blanket slung around my shoulders (drafty apartment!) and one shoe, because after I removed its partner, I realized I couldn't be bothered with the other. Here's what I want to eat because it will make everything—everything, I tell you—better: pasta.

More specifically, pantry pasta—aka, noodle-centric dishes that are mainly composed from shelf-stable ingredients you can keep in your pantry for ages, which often come together off-the-cuff (or at a minimum, with relative ease). Like, aglio e olio, or pasta con ceci.

In fact, we all love (and rely on!) these back-pocket pasta dinners so much that we're making our latest recipe contest all about them. Enter our shiny new contest, "Your Best Pantry Pasta," from stage left. Or stage right. Whatever. Just get those pantry pasta recipes out here, would you?!

Colu Henry's Fusilli Alfredo

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Pantry Pasta With Anchovies, Olives & Capers

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Submissions are now open, until March 1 at 6 p.m. ET. A couple ground rules:

• This contest is looking for pantry pastas, through and through. Meaning, noodle dishes that exist for those nights (or days) when you've got a sparsely populated larder and produce drawer. Think: canned tomato products, legumes, jarred olives, spices, shelf-stable oils (from olive oil to chili oil), bread crumbs, tinned fish, dried mushrooms, toasted nuts (or seeds!), vinegars of all shapes and sizes—you get the idea. What we're not after are three Michelin star–quality, all-day masterpieces topped with ounces upon ounces of uni. (By all means, send those over to our office, though!)
• Feel free to include a few perishable items. Like, a big hit of cream never hurt anyone; neither did ricotta. And come to think of it, neither did ground beef, or pretending to be Salt Bae except with chopped parsley. But keep the spirit of pantry pasta alive, please! (You'll have plenty of opportunities to showcase those pasta primaveras in future contests, we pinky promise.)
• If you're going to base your submission on a classic, go ahead and give it a twist, please. As in: by all means, riff on an aglio e olio, but please do so by adding something inventive, whether in technique or ingredient list.

Sue Kreitzman’s Lemon Butter Angel Hair Pasta

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Buttery Braised Onion Sauce

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• If you have a recipe already on the site, go to that recipe page, hit "Edit Recipe" (under the photo), scroll down, hit "Submit my recipe to a contest," select the latest contest ("Your Best Pantry Pasta"), and save.
• If you want to add a new recipe, head to your own profile page, select "Recipes," click "Add a Recipe," upload it, hit "Submit my recipe to a contest," select the latest contest, and save.

We read every submission and test as many as possible. But that’s a lot of reading and a lot of testing. We’re counting on you to help, too. Peruse the submission pages and make (and favorite!) any recipe that catches your eye. Then, share feedback on the recipe page. We take all this feedback into account as we narrow down to the top five, which will be announced on March 20.

For a full refresher on how the whole contest process works, check this out.

Best of luck and get ready for those pasta twirls!

Editors' Note: On Jan. 29, 2019, we made a few small tweaks to the rules above in order to clarify the guidelines, and give entrants more creative freedom. We hope this will lead to even more delicious pasta entries. Yay!

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What's your go-to pantry pasta? Let us know in the comments—then, enter the recipe in our contest!