Ground Beef Skillet Pasta with Pesto and Ricotta

Tonight’s a great night to combine a quick meat sauce with pasta cooked right in the skillet and some of the yummy flavors I love in lasagna! This ground beef skillet pasta is Italian comfort food served up in 30 minutes using only one pot. Is it dinner time yet?

You can connect with me by subscribing to my emails (see the form in the sidebar or below the recipe card), liking my FACEBOOK page, or by following me on PINTEREST.

Lately I’ve been having some fun working on various one-pot comfort food meals and spreading out the love to some of my favorite cuisines – Greek Lamb Meatballs and Rice, French Chicken Thighs Dijon, and now Italian Ground Beef Skillet Pasta. There is just something rather wonderful about creamy, Mediterranean dinners cooked all in a single skillet ready for a weeknight meal!

While I’m not against puttering about in the kitchen for most of an afternoon ( 🙂 I call that a fun afternoon), as I mentioned in my chicken dijon post sometimes you simply want to get dinner on the table without too much fuss. And workhorse skillet dinners are one of my favorite ways to go from ‘oh, I’d best get dinner started’ to ‘come and eat!’

When I can combine a skillet dinner with comfort food? So much the better. I clearly love comfort food, I especially love Italian comfort food. It’s home to me! Take some pesto and ricotta here, a couple of cans of tomatoes there, add a few handfuls of pasta and wrap it in a meat sauce.

What could be better?

Oh, yes! A nice glass of red wine. That finishes things off nicely. 😉

And now I want to stop right here and give a little shoutout to my husband. He had noticed that I’ve been either racing to finish my photoshoots before the winter sun disappears for the day (which is very early up here in Massachusetts!), or dealing with some rather cumbersome artificial lights that I was having trouble getting the hang of. They were never quite right! So, he bought me a set of lovely, umbrella lights which I can position and angle right to my photo area.

While I still love the look of natural light, it’s very nice to be able to take my photos later in the day! Or when it’s stormy and dark out at noon. I’ve been playing with the lights since Christmas, getting used to them and trying them out, and this week has been the week to finally put them to use. First, the Meyer lemon drop cocktail and now this pasta skillet. Going forward you will be seeing a mix of natural lighting and artificial lighting depending on when my food is ready for its closeup. I may even be able to do more photos in my kitchen (which has horrible natural light), and get more in-process, making-of photos.

A few points about the recipe before I get to it:

• Use a nonstick skillet. It makes all the difference in the world! You can use a standard skillet, but be prepared to stir it frequently and it’s going to stick no matter what. I just bought a Greenpan skillet. I’ve heard mixed reviews on their long term quality, so I’m going to give it a good test. So far, so good though.
• You can make this a vegetarian meal; however, it’s rather dull without the meat. We’ve tried it! I have yet to try beans as the protein, so if anyone wants to give it a shot, let me know how it tastes. Either ground beef or meatloaf mix works wonderfully as the meat in the recipe.
• Any short tube-y or spiral pasta works just great! (Or tube-y spiral pasta, like the trivelli in the photos, if you want to combine the two ideas.) If your pasta is on the thicker side, it may need a couple extra minutes before you take it off the heat. Taste a piece and see if it’s done to your liking.