One-pot Mushroom and Leek Pasta

Get dinner on the table quickly with this one-pot mushroom and leek pasta. It’s the perfect easy recipe to transition into seasonal spring cooking.

Now that February is somehow almost over, I thought it was about time I created a recipe that was a little more spring inspired. I always find that March can be a strange time to cook because we aren’t really craving those hearty stews and cheesy casseroles that we were all winter, but at the same time, we’re in no way ready for a light and fresh salad. (I think the snowy weather today in Toronto proves that). Today I’m sharing this one-pot mushroom and leek pasta with my good friends over at Mushrooms Canada. This recipe is kind of the best of both worlds because it’s carb-loaded (hello, pasta!) and has a bit of an indulgent and decadent feel to it from the creamy sauce. But it’s, also pretty good for you because it’s got spring-like flavour notes from fresh produce – I’ve opted to use leeks, mushrooms and peas in this recipe. The peas are frozen from the freezer, but to me, peas scream spring. Don’t you think?

This recipe was inspired by a sausage and leek pasta I made last year, but I wanted to try my hand at a vegetarian version.

These one-pot pasta recipes were all the rage a couple of years ago and I never shared one here because I figured you would all get your fill on the million of other blogs creating them. However, this trend actually held some weight because one-pot pastas can be incredibly delicious. I have a couple of rules for making one-pot pastas:

1. The meat should not cook with the pasta. I’m sorry, but nobody likes boiled meat. I’ll stay away from any one-pot pasta recipe where the meat is cooked with the pasta and other ingredients. No boiled chicken or pork for me.
2. They should be creamy. I love the addition of cream to this recipe (there’s only ¾ cup of 10% cream for a recipe that feeds four, so it’s not that bad), because it makes the pasta a little special.

Back to this one-pot mushroom and leek pasta, it’s so simple to make because everything cooks together in one pot – my kind of dinner! I made this a couple of different ways, but my favourite method requires sautéing the mushrooms and garlic ahead of time in butter. This allows the mushrooms to caramelize a bit instead of simply boiling in the sauce – this really ups the mushroom flavour of this pasta, so don’t skip this step. Once the mushrooms are starting to caramelize, the other ingredients get added and cooked until the pasta absorbs most of the liquid and you’re left with a huge pan of creamy pasta with mushrooms and leeks. The frozen peas are stirred in during the last minute of cooking and just like that, you’re done. This one-pot pasta thing is quite a revelation isn’t it? I know everyone loves how easy this technique is so I thought it would be the perfect recipe to share this time around.

This is a simple vegetarian dish that is the ultimate weeknight supper and a great way to enjoy some vegetables (like leeks) that you might not eat on a regular basis. If you want to try this recipe for yourself, be sure to click over to the Mushrooms Canada blog for the full list of ingredients and instructions.

Check out some other recipes I’ve done with Mushrooms Canada:

King Oyster Mushroom Fajitas

Beef and mushroom stuffed peppers

Beef and mushroom meatball sliders

Disclosure: I was compensated by Mushrooms Canada to develop this recipe. As always, all opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting my sponsors and allowing me to continue creating content like this one-pot mushroom and leek pasta!