14 Kid-Friendly Pasta Recipes for When They Won’t Eat Anything Else

• Time Commitment: 50 minutes
• Why I Love It: beginner-friendly, <10 ingredients, <500 calories
• Serves: 4

These nutritious little pillows will blow your mind when dressed up in a brown butter sage sauce, and the recipe is completely fool-proof. Plus, this healthy twist on gnocchi is a kid-approved favorite for two reasons: It’s colorful and it’s delicious.

Omit the sage and serve it on the side if you're concerned whether your kids will be into the flavor.

• Time Commitment: 15 minutes
• Why I Love It: <10 ingredients, beginner-friendly, vegetarian, one pot
• Serves: 4

Not only will everyone gobble up this lemon pasta, but you can make it in minutes. Just toss the spaghetti and toppings into a single pot, then sprinkle with fresh basil. (Or skip the herbs if your kids hate green stuff.)

My picky eaters absolutely love this simple spaghetti, but my secret is to make it a little saucier by reserving some pasta water to add to the strained spaghetti before I stir in copious amounts of cheese.

• Time Commitment: 40 minutes
• Why I Love It: <500 calories, beginner-friendly, crowd-pleaser
• Serves: 6

Whip up a quick Italian classic that looks fancy, but it’s really just spaghetti with tomato sauce. Easy to make and even easier to eat—even the pickiest eater at your table will be pleased with this one. If you want to be a little sneaky, chop up and quickly sauté some carrots so you can sneak them into the sauce for extra nutrition.

• Time Commitment: 30 minutes
• Why I Love It: dairy free, vegan, high protein
• Serves: 4

Getting your spouse and kids into plant-based eating? They’ll love this “creamy” corn pasta that doesn’t involve any dairy. (Although if you want to cheat, a little cotija cheese, cilantro instead of basil and a hit of lime juice turns this into a Mexican street corn-inspired delight, just saying.)

• Time Commitment: 50 minutes
• Why I Love It: vegan, gluten-free, <10 ingredients
• Serves: 4

Yes, your kids can see the peas, but the sweet butternut squash sauce with cream cheese more than makes up for it. Plus, peas are one of the most kid-friendly veggies, provided you don’t overcook them. Best of all, this recipe can be made to accommodate various dietary restrictions, including vegan and gluten-free. (Though, for dairy lovers, traditional cream cheese can absolutely be used as a 1:1 substitute for the vegan stuff.)

• Time Commitment: 35 minutes
• Why I Love It: crowd-pleaser, <10 ingredients, vegetarian
• Serves: 8

Here, a decadent and wonderfully cheesy dish…not to mention a very clever use of seasonal produce to sneak some extra nutrition into your kid’s favorite food. Wanna get extra fancy? Serve this mac and cheese in hollowed-out mini pumpkins and watch your kids’ eyes bug out of their heads.

• Time Commitment: 25 minutes
• Why I Love It: <30 minutes, <500 calories, beginner-friendly, vegetarian
• Serves: 4

Maria Lichty specializes in quick, gorgeous weeknight meals. Case in point: her goat cheese pasta tossed with spinach and artichokes. Just leave out the greens for picky kiddos and substitute with another kind they like better. My kids will devour this with broccoli—preferably quick-cooked so it’s still toothsome—or sautéed kale. I admit to omitting the greens entirely on occasion, and swapping in sun-dried tomatoes. As with most kid-friendly pasta recipes, this one is highly customizable.

• Time Commitment: 40 minutes
• Why I Love It: <10 ingredients, crowd-pleaser, make ahead
• Serves: 8

They will love it at dinner and devour the leftovers for school lunch, though I recommend using ridged noodles, like farfalle, to soak up the sauce and carry the bacon effectively. It’s also never a bad idea to add some chunks of mozz to make it extra kid-friendly.

Honestly, this recipe is a great canvas, so feel free to experiment with other add-ins (avocado, basil, what have you). But if you do try avocado (it adds a surprising creaminess!), just make sure you only add it when you're ready to serve the meal, so it doesn’t get brown and unappetizing.

Just call this fancy mac and cheese, and your little munchkins will be all over it.

• Time Commitment: 1 hour
• Why I Love It: vegan, crowd-pleaser, beginner-friendly
• Serves: 6 to 8

Presenting your kid’s two favorite foods combined—and made vegan-friendly. It tastes like pizza, but with added frozen veggies, it’s actually pretty nutritious. It might seem like a hard sell, but the tofu feta brings enough salty, umami flavor to the dish that your brood will be begging for seconds.

• Time Commitment: 1 hour
• Why I Love It: high protein, vegetarian, beginner-friendly
• Serves: 4

If the thought of serving eggplant to your kids seems like a joke, I get it…but trust. This budget-friendly pasta drowns the suspicious nightshade in a flavorful combination of tomato sauce, so your kids might get two servings of veggies tonight and be none the wiser.  You can omit or reduce the red pepper flakes, of course, and for best results, I recommend adding some fresh mozzarella into the mix as well.

• Time Commitment: 35 minutes
• Why I Love It: one pot, high protein, <10 ingredients
• Serves: 6

Meet your new go-to pasta dinner for busy weeknights. Why? You only need to wash one pot, and everything is ready to eat in 35 minutes. This is creamy comfort food at its finest and a recipe that every kid will request on repeat.

Plus, the method of cooking pasta in chicken broth is one of my favorites and can be adapted to many other recipes as well—just make sure you get the proportions right, so there’s no straining necessary.

• Time Commitment: 20 minutes
• Why I Love It: <10 ingredients, <30 minutes, high protein
• Serves: 6

Not all pasta needs to be served warm. That’s why we’re taking second scoops of this salami, artichoke and ricotta pasta salad. The creamy ricotta and salty cured meat do a great job of disguising the artichokes for kids who have a vegetable aversion. Pro tip: Avoid using marinated artichokes and just stick to the plain canned hearts instead so their cover isn’t blown.

• Time Commitment: 20 minutes
• Why I Love It: <500 calories, <30 minutes, <10 ingredients
• Serves: 6

Dress up simple buttered pasta by dousing bucatini in browned butter and pecorino and putting a few cherry tomatoes on top. (But if the kids ask what it is, just say “buttered pasta.”) I love that the cherry tomatoes are prepared separately so that they don’t melt into a sauce that picky eaters might refuse. Instead, kids can add as many or as few as they like to their plate.