~ So easy, with such amazing flavors! This One-Pot Whole-Wheat Pasta with Asparagus, Peas and Parmesan is at the delicious crossroads of light, fresh spring flavors and a big comfort-food hug. Seriously good any time of year, but the flavors are spot-on, sunshine-y springtime! Bonus: this skillet meal comes together so simply, in just one pot, and can even be made entirely ahead and quickly reheated on busy evenings! ~

This Recipe Is:   •  Ready in 30 Minutes or Less  •  Make Ahead  •  Vegetarian (see note)  •

Our little disclaimer: When we read about the newly released cookbook Healthyish, we asked author Lindsay Maitland Hunt for permission to review her book and post this recipe – because we adored the cookbook’s premise and really wanted to share the book with all of you. Although Lindsay and her publisher were kind enough to provide us with a free copy of the cookbook for review, we were not compensated in any other way and all opinions are entirely our own. The recipe for One-Pot Whole Wheat Spring Pasta is reprinted with permission.

I’ve told you about my parents’ bookshop, and confided in you about my foodie book obsession. My cookbook collection alone numbers somewhere over 400. I know that probably sounds like a ridiculously huge amount of cookbooks, but honestly, I’m pretty picky about which ones I keep around – hundreds more have gotten shuffled right back to my parents’ shop, simply not inspiring enough to earn a place on my shelves.

But when Healthyish came along, I knew it was something special. The kind of book that doesn’t take up residence on my shelves, but actually hangs out on my kitchen counter. That doesn’t happen often.

I reached out to Lindsay, the author, for permission to share this book and a couple of her recipes with you … because Healthyish is just so me … so you … so us.

First of all, it’s gorgeous, like you could nibble every photo and even the paper would taste good.

And it’s full of just exactly the kind of recipes I like to cook (and I know you do, too) – easy and healthy, but jam-crammed with flavor. Page after beautiful page of recipes I genuinely can’t wait to try.

From breakfasts to snacks, vegetarian dinners to beef, chicken and fish … all the way through to desserts that check “healthyish” boxes near and dear to my heart (like whole grains, reduced-fat ice creams and plenty of antioxidant-rich fruits).

In fact, I might have gone a little crazy, trying just a few more of Lindsay’s Healthyish recipes than I truly needed to, all in the name of being able to give you solid feedback. The great thing is, these recipes just work. I kinda started to feel like I couldn’t miss.

Try not to drool as I tick off the recipes we tried and really, really liked. And try to keep reading all the way to the end before you charge off and order your own copy straightaway. (But it’s ok if you just can’t wait … I’ll be here when you get back!) We made:

• Cozy Bean and Egg Skillet for Two – Except, well … I made it for three, which is no problem since it’s very forgiving and easy to double!

• Cheesy Broccoli and Pea Soup – One of the very first recipes I made, to serve along with the One-Pot Spring Pasta recipe I’m sharing with you today. It was a smash hit, and my family was genuinely surprised how much they enjoyed it (pictured below).

• Miso Chicken Noodle Soup – So simple and so adaptable – each of us chose whether we wanted to include the egg and the kimchi or not, to personalize it exactly the way we each liked.

• Quick Rotisserie Chicken Tacos with Smashed Avocado – I hope it’s not gonna sound like an overstatement to say that these are kind of life-changing. They’re the cover shot for the entire Healthyish cookbook and the poster child for everything the book stands for – simple, doable and WOW! Just wow. And lucky you – next week I’m sharing the recipe!

• Spiced Chicken and Chickpea Flatbreads with Cucumber-Dill Tzatziki – A fun meal that packs a protein wallop, all drizzled in a lick-your plate tzatziki (pictured below).

• Turkey and Chickpea Burgers with Dill Havarti – A lightened-up burger that was such a nice change of pace, and really satisfying despite being much lighter than a beef burger. Hint: don’t skip the dill havarti – it’s worth tracking down!

• Coconut Curry Noodles with Shrimp and Napa Cabbage – This was fun to make, and I sure was one happy camper to dig into the leftovers throughout the week. Craveworthy. Like, I’m sad the leftovers are gone now.

• Lemon Meringue “Pie” Sundaes – We loved this recipe! It had big, creamy-lemony-piey (piey?? Just go with me …) flavor but required no pie-making effort (yay!). And actually, we just made these again last night to celebrate Pi Day – our impromptu little math dessert was ready in moments (so nobody cared that I’d completely forgotten to plan a REAL pie for such a major holiday)!

And then this …

Along with the Cheesy Broccoli and Pea Soup, this One-Pot Whole-Wheat Pasta was one of the first recipes I made out of Healthyish (they were fantastic served together), and as we all debated which two recipes from the cookbook to share with you, I knew this pasta had to be one of them.

What Makes This Pasta So Special

It’s like ultimate comfort food meets light and fresh, veggie-packed, springtime joy. A satisfying bear-hug in the fresh sunshine of a warm spring day.

Crisp-tender asparagus and sweet peas are a lovely textural contrast to perfectly al dente pasta. Just a little butter gives a touch of richness, and along with a bit of the residual cooking water, it deftly creates a light and silky sauce that drapes over the pasta and veggies.

Then there’s the ingenious hit of tarragon, which adds a freshness that’s less assertive than summer basil. Remember how a waiter once entrusted my friend with the secret to amazing Chicken Salad (“Always use tarragon!”)? Well, tarragon works the same unexpected magic here. It’s that little something … that you can’t quite put your finger on.

Savory parmesan and bright lemon are the finishing top notes. Lemon and parm are a dynamic duo that team up as a simple way to add a huge flavor punch to quick pasta dishes – and it’s sort of become one of my favorite flavor-boosting combos lately. Remember our Roasted Broccoli and Cauliflower Pasta and our Pasta with Peas and Bacon? Oh, yeaaaaahhhhhh. Those recipes. Make them again (right after you try this one!).

Plus, we’ve got the whole-wheat pasta thing happening here! Hurray for whole-grain nutrition that tastes so darn good that nobody will notice or care!

It might seem like this recipe just can’t get any better.

But wait … it does …

ONE POT!

Yes. I kid you not. It’s a busy home cook’s dream. It all happens in one pot!

The process is no-brainer easy, and clean-up is a breeze.

One-pot pasta recipes hold a special allure for me. I remember when I first heard of the idea a few years ago, and I almost couldn’t believe it could actually work. Wouldn’t the pasta be gummy if you didn’t go through the whole song and dance of boiling it separately and draining away the starchy cooking water? (Spoiler alert: no.)

I used to think one-pot pasta recipes seemed too good to be true. But actually … they’re just TOO GOOD. So, so toooooo good.

Psssst … if you’re a one-pot, skillet meal lover like I am, be sure to check out our BLT Pierogi Skillet, our One-Pot Rasta Pasta, our Mexican Rice Skillet Dinner, and our One-Pot Creamy Cajun Shrimp Pasta, too. They’re all fantastic answers to the busy-weeknight-dinner dilemma we all grapple with.

But definitely start here first, with this Springtime Pasta (and maybe put those others on your grocery list for next week)!

Tips for Making This Yummy Whole-Wheat Pasta Recipe

• First off, although Lindsay calls this “Spring Pasta,” it’s pretty easy to snag these ingredients year-round, so you really can whip it up at a moment’s notice, any time you could use a little refreshing spring sunshine in your life. I highly recommend it any time of year (in Ohio, we take all the sunshine we can get)!

• To make this extra-pretty, cut the asparagus on the diagonal. Or, if you’re in a hurry … just chop and go. The key is keeping the asparagus pieces evenly around an inch in length (more or less – don’t stress over precision), so that they’re an ideal size to hang out with medium-sized pasta shapes like penne. (Psssst … and if you need some help selecting the very best asparagus, be sure to check out my 3 Easy Tips for How to Buy Asparagus.)

• Note that you’re using both lemon zest and lemon juice here (double-bright sunshine flavor!). It’s easiest to zest the lemon first, before you cut it in half and juice it. If you’re a zesting newbie, not to worry – we’ve got a whole post on how to zest a lemon. And, I suggest equipping yourself with a microplane grater like mine. It’s a workhorse that’s stayed sharp for years now, and I just toss it right in the dishwasher for easy clean-up.

• Lindsay wrote this pasta recipe for Healthyish so that you add the asparagus and peas right in with the pasta – it’s super simple that way, saving a step of adding the pasta and the veggies in two separate steps. But, note on the recipe card that I offer my suggestions from testing this recipe, for how you can adjust exactly when you add the veggies, depending on how cooked or al dente your family likes them.

Cooking This One-Pot Pasta Ahead of Time

Be sure to check out my notes on the recipe card about how you can make the entire recipe ahead of time and rewarm it in a jiffy.

As if one-pot pasta wasn’t already a total lifesaver on busy nights!

Full disclosure: when it first comes off the stove, still saucy and fresh, it’s truly at its pinnacle. But it’s still fantastic rewarmed, and you can loosen it back up with a little broth or even a tiny drizzle of olive oil to get back a bit of that velvety, creamy feel that it had when it was first hot off the stove.

If you do plan to make this entirely ahead and reheat it at dinnertime, though, you should definitely consider adding the peas and asparagus a bit later in the cooking process, so they retain some of their vibrance when reheated.

Mmmmmmmm … enjoy your taste of springtime. And I’ll see you for tacos next week, friends!