18 Fresh Summer Pasta Recipes to Make Before the Season’s Over 

Sliced zucchini brings a fresh element to Italian sausage pasta. Served with some garlic bread and a glass of wine, it quickly becomes a satisfying meal.

Use up those summer veggies with this light and healthy pasta recipe.

“Clam pasta is a great way to extract all the flavor and texture of clams,” says chef and food writer Samin Nosrat. “Their juices mingle with the butter and wine and cook into the pasta, and the clams themselves are tender-chewy. It’s like having the ocean in a bowl.” Serve with lots of crusty bread for sopping up juices.

Crisp vegetables, a spicy sweet dressing, and soba noodles combine to make a perfect, picnic-ready side dish (but it’s also good enough for a main, just pair with tofu or chicken).

In this recipe we incorporate an extra step that really has impact on the visual aspect of this dish. We practice the common restaurant technique of blanching the basil and spinach for the pesto. Briefly cooking the greens in rapidly boiling water for a few seconds and shocking in ice water sets the chlorophyll and locks in the bright green color for the finished pesto.

Fresh veggies and flavorful feta cheese make this Mediterranean-inspired pasta dish big on flavor and short on prep time.

If you think of ravioli as a stick-to-your-ribs sort of dish, this summertime version will be a revelation—served in a light broth with fresh seasonal vegetables.

Light, lively green garlic and a little cream make this a perfect winter-into-spring pasta dish. The thin noodles soak up the sauce fast, so serve it immediately.

Chef Josh Buckwald created this verdant dish enriched by creamy burrata. “We love campanelle, cavatelli, or corzetti for this one,” he says, “But no wrong answers here.”

Saucing an Italian dish with the flavors of Mexican street corn is exactly the sort of madcap riff chef Donald Hawk, of Phoenix’s Valentine, specializes in. They make their pasta in-house with ‘00’ white Sonoran wheat and local egg yolk, but you can make this dish with store-bought spaghetti. And while they source their goat cotíja from Crow’s Dairy, normal cotíja works too.

For this summery pasta, Samin Nosrat cooks down half of the tomatoes into a savory jam, then adds fresh ones at the end. “I like to layer flavors, to have two levels of deliciousness.” If you can’t find ricotta salata, fresh ricotta works well, too–just drain it and stir in some salt.

This simple penne pasta dish features pancetta, diced tomatoes, red chile flakes, and parmesan cheese.

Pappardelle’s ribbony shape elevates weeknight pasta dinners. If you want a creamier texture in this dish, substitute soft goat cheese for the feta.

If any ocean creature can be said to have a cult following, it’s sea urchin (uni). Its roe, the edible part, has a briny, sweet taste. When mixed with hot pasta, the roe melts and creates a luscious sauce, as in this recipe based on one from San Diego sea-urchin diver Peter Halmay. California produces most of the American sea-urchin supply; look for the top grade, called California Gold, or B-grade California Premium, which has a slightly softer texture. The roe is extremely perishable, so use it as soon as possible.

We subbed in the green fruit for olive oil to create a pesto that’s lighter and fresher than the classic. You’ll want to serve the pasta right away, while the color is bright.

If you love heat, go for the full amount of chile flakes in this take on pasta alle vongole. We suggest serving warm, crusty bread on the side to sop up the juices.

We are big fans of frozen peas because they’re often better than fresh—and they take no time to cook. Thaw them right before you need them so they don’t get wrinkly.

We lightened up this pasta salad by replacing the usual mayonnaise dressing with Greek-style low-fat yogurt, which has been strained so that it’s thick and rich-tasting.