One-Pot Kale Fennel Pasta

One-pot kale fennel pasta cooks in the same pan as its accompanying ingredients – no need to boil a separate pot of water!

We all know the drill. You come home, you’re bone-tired, and you need a quick dinner that will feed everyone and feed them fast.

So you reach for your biggest stockpot and turn the faucet on full blast, filling it with water to bring a box of pasta to a boil. It’s the oldest trick in the book.

But you can teach an old dog new tricks.

And I’m that old dog in this case, because I now turn to one-pot pastas that ditch the separate stockpot leave me with one fewer dish to wash at the end of the night.

Here’s the thing: unless you’re stirring a hunk of butter into elbow noodles and calling it a night, you’ll be cooking something else to toss with your pasta. Why not make it a one-dish proposition?

With this technique, similar to the method used for simmering risotto, you’re letting the pasta cook in broth or other flavorful liquid at the same time and in the same pan as its accompaniments.

Give the pasta a quick stir every three to five minutes or so while you grab plates and silverware, catch up on email, make a salad, pour a drink, and before you know it, you can carry the whole shebang to the table.

Chefs already do this to an extent, taking pasta out of the water a few minutes before it’s perfectly al dente and stirring it into whatever luscious sauce they’re simmering for the last bit of cooking time.

The pasta absorbs the sauce, giving it extra oomph, and the sauce takes on some of the pasta starch to thicken it a little more.

And everyone’s all about adding more kale to their repertoire these days, which is great, since it’s one of those vegetables that benefits from a nice braise.

This one-pot kale fennel pasta takes advantage of this characteristic (kale-acteristic? too much?).

Instead of cooking the pasta and the vegetable separately, both get a bubbly bath in vegetable or chicken broth, simmering until they’re tender.

Similarly, fennel is another vegetable that doesn’t need to be babied in a pan. The longer it cooks, the more tender and caramelized it gets, giving vegetarian dishes a rich and meaty undertone.

The slender slices of fennel retain their structure even after being cooked for 20 minutes, giving the dish a hint of sweet crunch, while a dash of red pepper flakes bring the heat.

The result is a one-pot kale fennel pasta that can hold its own with other comforting braised winter dishes, without the hours of slow cooking.

Like this recipe? Try some of my other one-pot pastas like briny linguini with clam sauce and hearty Italian wedding soup pasta.