Easy Cheesy Pasta with Ham
Keep a few tubs of cream cheese in the fridge & you have the base for a delicious sauce in minutes!!
Serves 4 Approx 66p per person
Prep/Cooking time 25 minutes
Level 🍴
Ingredients
- Dried pasta shapes, (shells, bows etc.) allow about 75g per person
- 1x200g tub cream cheese with garlic & herbs or chives
- 1 packet of sandwich ham, chopped
- 1 handful of frozen peas
Cook the pasta according to packet instructions then, 5 minutes before its ready throw in the peas.
Before draining the pasta, reserve about 2 tbsp of the cooking water.
Once drained return the pasta to the pan & drizzle with a little olive oil to stop it sticking together.
Add the cream cheese, stir well & slowly pour in the pasta water, stirring again. This makes the sauce smooth & glossy.
Stir in the ham & allow it to warm through then serve.
There are many varieties of cream cheese with different flavours available now so try experimenting.
For a little decadence, replace the ham with smoked salmon. Most supermarkets sell packets of smoked salmon trimmings which are ideal & reasonably priced. Just add it in as you would the ham & it cooks through really quickly!
Spinach goes well with smoked salmon! Just add a couple of blocks of frozen spinach to the pasta before its ready instead of the peas!
The spinach & salmon combo would make a lovely weekend treat for two!!
