Let the vegetables do the work for dinner tonight! This Roasted Vegetable Pasta Toss recipe is flavorful, comforting and easy to make.
In the world of easy dinners, can one that needs about an hour to cook be included? I think so. Especially when that one recipe is mostly hands off.
That’s the case with this Roasted Vegetable Pasta Toss.
You prepare the vegetables — slicing, dicing, etc — and then combine them with lemon wedges on a cookie sheet. Drizzled with olive oil and seasonings, this is ready to roast. As for you? You’re ready to relax. Or clean the kitchen. Or help a child with homework. Whatever you need to do.
The resulting dish has a subtle lemon flavor throughout. It’s not overpowering, though. The roasting infuses the flavor into the veggies while taming the acidic qualities. Make sure you remove the lemon rind when the veggies come out of the oven.
Then it’s time to toss with pasta and serve. Easy!
This dish is seasoned lightly, relying more on the enhanced flavors of the roasted vegetables, but feel free to adjust the seasonings to your preferences. If you want a stronger lemon flavor, you could drizzle a little extra lemon on the pasta just before serving. Or for more herbiness, add a sprinkle of fresh herbs when combining the pasta and the veggies.
And if the prescribed mix of veggies doesn’t work for you, that’s okay too. This is a pretty flexible recipe, so make the changes you need to in order to love this. It’s fine to use green bell peppers instead of the red ones or leeks instead of onions, or you could add broccoli or fresh green beans or something else.
Now, who wants an easy, fresh dinner tonight?
Roasted Vegetable Pasta Toss
Let the vegetables do the work for dinner tonight! This Roasted Vegetable Pasta Toss recipe is flavorful, comforting and easy to make.
Ingredients
- 1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
- 1 cup diced butternut squash (about a ½-inch dice)
- 1 small sweet onion, sliced and quartered
- 1 red bell pepper, sliced
- 1 lemon
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- salt and pepper, to taste
- ½ tsp dried oregano
- ½ lb dried pasta
- Optional: broccoli florets (about 1 cup), parmesan cheese, diced fresh mozzarella cheese
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray a baking sheet with cooking oil spray or brush with oil.
- Add the tomatoes, butternut squash, onions and red peppers to the baking sheet. (If using broccoli too, add at this point.) Slice and quarter the lemon and toss with the veggies. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper and oregano.
- Roast the veggies for 45-60 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes, until they begin to brown. Remove from the oven and discard lemon rinds.
- Cook pasta according to package directions. Toss with the roasted veggies. Serve immediately, or add parmesan and/or mozzarella cheese and toss well before serving.