‘The Pioneer Woman’: Ree Drummond’s Cajun Veggie Pasta Recipe Is a Healthy Dinner Idea
Ree Drummond makes an easy Cajun veggie pasta recipe that’s a healthy and flavorful meal your family will adore. The Pioneer Woman star has a chicken version of the dish as well if you’re looking to add protein to the dinner.
Ree Drummond makes a pasta recipe with Cajun flavor
Drummond demonstrated how to make her Cajun veggie pasta recipe on an episode of The Pioneer Woman, calling it “flavorful, fast, and a family favorite.”
She prepped vegetables and added them to a hot skillet with olive oil and butter. “I have the skillet super hot because this is a Cajun dish and I kind of want to get the edges of the veggies nice and black if I can,” she explained.
Drummond added mushrooms, strips of red and green pepper, minced garlic, and Cajun spice mix containing cayenne, paprika, and garlic powder. “You can absolutely make your own if you want to,” she noted. “I’ve done that before in a pinch.”
While the veggies cooked, Drummond boiled pasta. “I usually try to do fettuccine if I have it in my pantry. I make a version of this pasta with chicken. Cajun chicken pasta and I always use fettuccine. It just seems to be the perfect noodle for all the ingredients.”
The Food Network host added sliced zucchini to the skillet of vegetables along with more cajun spice. “I’m waiting to add this until now because I don’t want it to get too mushy,” she shared. “When I make the sauce later I definitely want it to still have all of that flavor and spice.”
‘The Pioneer Woman’ star makes an easy creamy sauce
The Pioneer Woman star got to work on the sauce for the dish. She added broth to the vegetables, stirred the mixture, and cooked it for a few minutes until it was reduced by half.
Drummond added heavy cream next. “I want the skillet to be really hot when it goes in because I need the cream to thicken up,” she said. “I think every pasta dish should have a cream component.”
She allowed the cream sauce to thicken for another couple of minutes then added diced Roma tomatoes. “I save these for the end because I definitely don’t want those to fall apart,” Drummond explained.
The Food Network host drained the pasta and added it to the sauce, tossed the noodles to coat everything, and sprinkled on green onions and parsley before serving.
The full recipe is available on the Food Network website.
Ree Drummond makes a chicken version of the dish
As she mentioned on her cooking show, Drummond also makes a cajun chicken pasta recipe. She wrote about the dish in a 2011 blog post on The Pioneer Woman website.
“This really is one of my favorite recipes here on The Pioneer Woman Cooks, and I regularly hear from people who’ve made it with great success,” she wrote. “Crowd-pleaser!”
Drummond called the recipe “an exceedingly yummy, decadent pasta dish with chicken, vegetables, and lots and lots of scrumptious carbs.” The Food Network host shared, “It’s a cinch to throw together, and if you don’t have prepared Cajun spice in your cabinet, you can just throw a few spices together to make your own combination.”
Drummond also pointed out, “And you can add Cajun extras to this dish — things like Andouille sausage, crawfish, or shrimp. Play with it … have fun!”
The Food Network host’s chicken version is similar to her veggie pasta recipe but doesn’t include mushrooms and adds red onions and white wine.
