RECIPE: A blender packs veggies into green pasta sauce

Whether you’re serving small kids or just want to find some strategies for sneaking extra vegetables into your dinners, quick blender pasta sauces are your friend. Simply blitz up cooked veggies, cheese and a bit of pasta water and you’ve essentially got a creamy puree to toss with your favorite pasta shape (in our house, that’s anything long and skinny).

And while you can do this technique with just about any vegetable (roasted butternut squash and cheddar cheese is a great mac and cheese-like combination), you’ll want to choose some that are quick-cooking to get the recipe done in 30 minutes. I like to use a combination of frozen peas, which turn tender in about 30 seconds in a pot of boiling water, and baby spinach, which will wilt down in the blender just by adding a bit of the hot pasta cooking water. A small clove of garlic and a fistful of freshly grated Parmesan add umami and richness. You can adjust the thickness of the sauce by drizzling in additional pasta water; you’ll want a sauce that’s pourable but not soupy.

For a final flourish, I always finish my blender sauces with a few tablespoons of olive oil — add it in while the blender is running to make the mixture silky smooth.