Summer Squash Makes Your Pasta Unbelievably Creamy

The summer season brings with it a whole host of wonderful fruits and vegetables to enjoy. Everything from stone fruit to squash tastes all the more satisfying when you're beating the heat and enjoying the special seasonal delights. While many summertime meals are centered around BBQ and the like, there's still room for pasta in all of its wonderful forms. For warm-weather pasta dishes, try adding a cooked version of your favorite summer squash to amplify the creamy texture and flavor complexity. The rich combination of sweet and savory tastes elevates your summertime pasta to extraordinary heights.

Adding summer squash to your pasta can work a few different ways and, texturally speaking, provides a delightful mouthfeel to enrich your dishes. Whether you cook your squash into a sauce or mix it in as a topping, the jammy texture of cooked summer squash is sensational. Much like with a butternut squash mac and cheese recipe, adding summer squash to your pasta adds a creaminess to your pasta with the addition of a vegetable ingredient. It's simply a matter of cooking your summer squash down to a spreadable consistency to mix in or use as a sauce for your pasta. This works for many different recipes and leaves room for experimenting with your summertime favorites.

From pattypan and crookneck to zephyr and zucchini, summer squash is versatile and packed with essential nutrients. Because summer squash has a thinner skin than winter squash, it is also considerably easier to prepare for inclusion in a pasta dish. Unless you really want to, you won't even have to peel your squash first before dicing and cooking it down to a rich, melt-in-your-mouth texture. Of the wide variety of sweet and savory summer squash recipes, pairing squash with pasta ranks high as a simple and unforgettable meal. 

To cook your squash to pasta-ready perfection, slowly caramelizing over low heat is a great way to go. Simply chop or grate your squash and add plenty of olive oil and your favorite herbs and spices to a pan, stirring occasionally, to let your squash mixture achieve the right creamy texture. 

Add cooked summer squash to your favorite pasta dishes (like fajita pasta with cilantro lime sauce) to amp up the creamy texture and nutritious vegetables. Consider the possibilities of adding melty summer squash to a crab boil carbonara and enjoy the wonderfully fragrant seafood flavors with an extra helping of creamy summer squash. For a fully vegetarian and fully loaded squash dish, try air frying your zucchini noodles and mixing in your favorite jammy summer squash with herbs and oil. However you choose to use summer squash in your pasta, it's sure to be a hit around the table.