Don’t feel like a horrible human being ever again by wasting that leftover pasta you got from your favorite Italian restaurant. Being college students sometimes means you’ll have to eat your leftovers, make lazy meals (like pasta), and also wish you had your parents’ wallets to live off of — so here are a few ways to make sure you don’t have to deal with a boring repeated meal and instead have a self-made fancy “leftover meal” sans your mom and dad’s wallets.
If you have tomato sauce pasta…
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Basically, if you have the culinary skills that are limited to pasta and spaghetti sauce (or if you’re just plain lazy) and want to make yourself some tomato sauce pasta, level up yourself by adding the following into your meal:
Parma Ham
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Want to feel a little fancy in your dorm room? Toss some Prosciutto or Jamon Serrano or any other cold cut meat onto your pasta and feel like I-G-G-Y.
Chili Flakes
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Sprinkle some chili flakes on your pasta for some spice. Now cry. Because of the chili. And happiness.
Garlic Toast
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If you’re one who just can’t deal with normal toast, mash up some garlic and mix it with some butter before slathering it on some bread and putting it in the toaster oven. Then use the bread to carry that leftover sauce into your mouth hole.
If you have olive oil pasta…
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If you’re up to frying some garlic in olive oil and tossing some pasta in, then try the following to spruce it up:
Garlic Butter Mushrooms
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Want to add more carbs to your carbs? Mix a shit ton of butter, smashed garlic, and some quartered mushrooms in your pan for a college-budget friendly side to your pasta.
Shrimp Stir Fry
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Some want shrimp cocktails, others want a seafood platter, but all college kids want this on top of their leftover pasta. Just toss some shrimp, salt, pepper, chili flakes, and olive oil into your pan and top your pasta with them.
Dumplings
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Instead of spending more dolla billz on takeout or at a Chinese restaurant, finish your leftover pasta with an Asian twist using some Trader Joe’s dumplings that you can throw on top.
Broccoli
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Get some health in you by drizzling some olive oil on top of some broccoli before sliding it into the oven for about 10 minutes.
Lastly, if you’ve got creamy pasta…
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If you’re in the mood to make some, you can find an easy recipe here. If you’re feelin’ lazy and have a jar of Alfredo sauce and pasta leftover, just add in some of these to your meal:
Asparagus
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You most likely won’t have this in your fridge (because well, you’re in college) but salt ’em up, pepper ’em up and then chargrill or panfry them for more of that green food group in your body.
Bacon Bits
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Oh. Yes.
A Half-Boiled Egg
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Get some of that sexy yolk running through your pasta strands by cracking a half-boiled egg over your pasta. And then take 100 pictures of it before eating it.
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Thank me later.