EASY One Pot Basil Pasta

If you haven't noticed, I am all about easy when cooking. I would love to be more adventurous but at this particular stage in my life, cooking elaborate meals just isn't an option. I would love to video what cooking dinner in my house looks like for you -maybe I will one day. But it typically involves at least one kid around my feet, another pulling out all pots and pans, dropping cans on the floor - you get the picture.  So when I find something as easy to fix as this one pot pasta, you can rest assured we have it a lot!

This is a vegan meal and one that everyone can love.  No need to even tell everyone it's vegan - just fix it up and serve. They will love it.  The beauty comes from the fact that everything, and I mean everything, gets fixed up in one pot. No need to precook the pasta.

What you need:

12 ounces whole wheat pasta (I used spaghetti but you can use linguine too!)

1 (15 ounce) can diced tomatoes (I used no salt added but you could do a flavored one as well)

1 large sweet onion chopped 

4 cloves garlic thinly minced (you see I am lazy and buy the already chopped kind)

2 tsp dried oregano leaves

2 large sprigs of basil chopped

4 1/2 C of vegetable broth (not low sodium kind)

2 tbls extra virgin olive oil

Original recipe calls for red pepper flakes but I omitted those because of my inability to tolerate spice. Also calls for parm cheese on top but we left that out as well. You see I had some extra mushrooms in the fridge so I threw those in - ended up being great but it was just definitely a last minute decision.

What you do:

1.  Put the pasta (uncooked), tomatoes, onion, garlic, basil, mushrooms (if using) in large stock pot.  Pour vegetable broth on top.  Sprinkle top with oregano (and red pepper flakes if using).  Drizzle top with oil.

2.  Cover pot and bring to a boil.  Then keep covered and simmer on low for about 10 minutes or until almost all liquid is gone.  Stir it every couple of minutes while cooking.  

3.  Season to taste with salt and pepper and stir well before serving to get any remaining liquid evenly distributed throughout.  

We LOVE LOVE LOVE this meal.  I feel like it is so fresh but mostly it is easy.  It also provides us with a good amount of left overs too. My three year old loves it but my one year old doesn't like noodles so we have to fix him something else. I am sure he will grow to love it too.  

Try it out and let me know what you think!