Ham and Peas Pasta with Garlic Parmesan Cream Sauce
The perfect way to use up all your leftover ham! It is amazingly creamy, comforting and kid-friendly!
Is it just me or are the leftovers really the best part about the holidays?
For me, it’s the ham leftovers. You serve it with your scrambled eggs for breakfast, or you make midday sandwiches to get you through that work crunch.
And now, with ALDI’s Appleton Farms Spiral Sliced Hickory Smoked Honey Ham, you can have even more.
This ham is budget-friendly, serves an army of at least 7-10, and is incredibly easy to serve.
And IF you happen to have any leftovers, you can have it in pasta-form, involving my favorite garlic parmesan cream sauce with the award-winning Priano Parmesan cheese.
So it’s basically the gold of all cream sauces.
It really is.
I also added some green peas. Because we need a little color in our dish.
Not only that, it takes just minutes to whip up with your leftover ham!
Ham and Peas Pasta with Garlic Parmesan Cream Sauce
Ingredients
- 8 ounces SimplyNature Organic Spaghetti
- ¼ cup Countryside Creamery unsalted butter
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons Baker’s Corner all-purpose flour
- 1 cup Chef’s Cupboard chicken broth, or more, as needed
- 1 teaspoon Stonemill dried thyme
- ½ teaspoon Stonemill dried basil
- ½ cup Countryside Creamery half and half
- ½ cup freshly grated Priano Parmesan
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 2 cups chopped Appleton Farms Spiral Sliced Hickory Smoked Honey Ham
- 1 cup Season’s Choice Frozen Sweet Peas
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
Instructions
- In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta according to package instructions; drain well.
- To make the garlic parmesan cream sauce, melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic, and cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about 1-2 minutes. Whisk in flour until lightly browned, about 1 minute.
- Gradually whisk in chicken broth, thyme and basil. Cook, whisking constantly, until incorporated, about 1-2 minutes.
- Stir in half and half and Parmesan until slightly thickened, about 1-2 minutes. If the mixture is too thick, add more half and half as needed; season with salt and pepper, to taste.
- Stir in spaghetti, ham and peas, and gently toss to combine.
- Serve immediately, garnished with parsley, if desired.
Notes
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Disclosure: This post is sponsored by ALDI. As always, I only partner with brands that I love and truly believe in, allowing me to create more quick and easy recipes to get us through the week without breaking the bank. All opinions expressed are my own.
I love this recipe. We get honey baked ham every year for Christmas and Easter and the leftover ham is perfect for this recipe!
Simple, light and delicious! You may wonder how this dish could be called light with the cream and butter…but, it is. The sauce isn’t too heavy, and it gives the fusili (I used corkscrew shapes) pasta a nice bath in garlicy sauce. I used fresh (cooked) peas, cubes of ham from a ham steak, and the rest of the recipe items…and, I added some sliced scallions and fresh cherry tomatoes at the end, boiling the pasta until the cherry tomatoes just burst open. So very delicious!
I moaned the entire meal. Really. It’s true! This recipe was amazing! But, I have to admit, I didn’t have the exact ingredients so I changed it up, but the base (sauce) was the key. I have fresh sugar snap peas from the garden so I used them. I also have fresh basil and thyme so I used that instead of dried. And I added prosciutto. And I only had heavy cream – no 1/2 & 1/2 so the cream made it extra creamy. Really. I moaned throughout the entire meal. Thank you! This was Damn Delicious!!! (Your recipes always rock! They are always a huge hit in my house.)
Loved it! Final dinner using our leftover Easter ham. I did add about 1/2 an onion with the garlic. The only pasta we had was cheese tortellini, so used that. Went well with the sauce. Next time I will try with spaghetti. Thanks for the recipe.
I just made this and I got a thumbs-up from my picky eater. I made a couple modifications… I used fettuccine that I made fresh, and I typically use heavy cream even when a recipe calls for half and half. I read through the instructions a couple times before I made the decision to heat through my peas with the chopped ham before adding them. I did not want to add frozen peas and it made sense to take the chill off the ham as well. All turned out awesome.
Wow – very tasty! Perfect thing to do with leftover Easter ham.
We had this last night in an attempt to use previously frozen ham left over from a catered Christmas dinner. The ham wasn’t good then, and I was hoping this recipe would mask that. NOPE!
We loved everything about this dish EXCEPT that nasty ham ruined it for us.
I caution you to use good quality baked ham.
Next time, with different ham, we will make half the recipe because there are only two of us.
I was looking for something to do with my ham steak, beyond just serving the ham with sides or incorporating it into bean/lentil soup, and this met my need perfectly. I did add a splash of white wine before the chicken broth, and instead of peas (which I didn’t have), I used 1 cup frozen corn and 8 oz of frozen broccoli. The broccoli was microwaved since I thought the frozen pieces were too big to thaw in the sauce, and the corn I just threw in frozen like the peas would have been. Rave reviews by the anti-ham person in my household; this recipe is a keeper!
Awesome meal. Twisted the recipe with water and a “dash” of white wine instead of chicken stock, plus used sprial pasta instead of spaghetti. Dont think we have half and half in Australia so thankyou for the notes of an equivalent. Great way to use some of the leftover Christmas ham. My family were asking for more 🙂
I’m not the best or most experienced cook, but these directions were great and it turned out super yummy!!!
We cooked this in our cast-iron pan & it turned out nice. A few substitutions:
Minced garlic vs ME thin sliced garlic added after the mushrooms are sautéed (to prevent burning)
2 tablespoons Flour vs ME 1.5
Thyme & basil vs ME herb de providence
Half & half vs ME So Delicious Coconut Milk
1 cup + of broth vs ME only 1 cup
My fiance said he wished it had more cream sauce should’ve added more coconut milk & broth. A keeper recipe
for leftover seafood, chicken & ham.
Going to try the cream ham sauce drizzled on baked spaghetti squash nest next time.
This was delicious! I used penne instead of spaghetti (upon request) and I took the thyme down to 1/2 teaspoon (because I wasn’t sure how the flavor would go over with the sensitive palate of the penne requester…) and I used deli sliced ham because it’s what I had on hand (used 1 cup instead of 2 due to the thin slice) but all in all, this was excellent (even for the sensitive palate lol.) I will definitely be making this again! Thank you!
I really liked this, I think next time I will sub out ham for chicken, just bc my family isn’t big on ham.
But it was easy to make and I had most of the ingredients already (except the ham)
I think its delicious.
Yummy, great use of leftover Easter ham & whatever else in house.
Made with diced zucchini (didn’t have peas) and whole milk because I didn’t have half and half …. SO good! Even my picky 5 year old and 3 year old loved it! Definitely a keeper!!!
Just made this with some fresh peas I was given, and it was so delicious ! Restaurant quality for sure!
Made this a few days ago and MAN was it delicious. I had a rather sweet glazed ham so when I first ate it, I thought the flavors were kind of strange together but I still liked it. I just ate the leftovers for lunch today and HOLY MOLY it was fab. The sweetness of the glaze had time to meld together with the other flavors in the refrigerator and I had to stop myself from eating all of my leftovers. Thank you for this recipe!
I made this with leftover ham (made with your maple glazed ham recipe). It was easy and delicious.
First time making this dish , great way to repurpose ham ! Family loved it !