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Dinner Therapist is my column dedicated to solving your dilemmas around the most important — but, let’s be honest, sometimes most dreaded — meal of the day. Prepping dinner night after night can be so hard. Here, I deliver practical and hopefully fun advice to make cooking less complicated and more enjoyable. Follow along for all the recipes. Got your own dinner struggles? We want to hear from you! Fill out this super-quick form for your chance to be featured in an upcoming column.
My version of creamy miso butter pasta first happened on the fly one evening when I was totally exhausted and scrambling to throw together a single meal that would comfort my sick preschooler and feel totally satisfying — although preferably, restaurant-level delicious — to me. While I didn’t want to eat “kid food” yet again, I wanted something my kid would actually eat. What started off as buttered noodles, quickly morphed into a super-creamy, velvety sauce made with salty-sweet white miso paste, Parmesan, and starchy pasta water. Simple, quick, and easily adaptable, this is essentially grown-up buttered noodles.
After making it dozens of times just this year, I’ve learned that the key to totally nailing it every single time is getting the ratio of butter to miso paste to pasta water just right. The dish more than hits the mark for everyone around the table.
While the recipe doesn’t include vegetables, please know that basically all vegetables are fair game here. Frozen vegetables like peas, broccoli, and green beans can be added to the pot of pasta in the last minute of cooking, while fresh vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower florets, chopped kale or Swiss chard, and green beans should be added in the final few minutes of cooking. If you already have some sautéed, roasted, or grilled vegetables, just cut into bite-size pieces and mix directly into the sauce before adding the pasta.