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.
Crowd pleaser! Rich enough to appease the adults at the table. Mild enough to appeal to the young kiddos. Everyone at the table devoured! And based on comments, it’s a great base to get creative. But I really enjoyed the recipe as written. I love having another way to use leftover ham. I feel like it rots in my freezer after a while. …not anymore!!! Oh, I did make one slight modification. I mixed half wheat pasta and half regular. I like having the softness of the white, but the creamy flavor pairs well with the nutty bite of whole wheat.
This was an amazing way to use uo my leftover ham from New years dinner! Thank you so much for this recipe!
I guess I just don’t like thyme. Tastes like dirt to me. And I only used half the recommended amount. The base idea of the recipe is pretty good. I might try it again without thyme.
Followed most of the recipe except:
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 yellow onion (small) finely diced
[with the garlic, sautéed then added the butter]
1/2 cup of mushrooms
[continue to cook until soft]
followed rest of directions, but added with liquid:
1/2 cup of Pinot Grigio (or other dry white wine)
added with the cheese:
1/4 cup of mozzarella
The sauce was a bit thick so I added a splash of each of the 3 liquids to help thin it out! It turned out amazing! Thank you!!
I used Spam, increased the sauce and added sliced olives and my husband loves it.
So good! Easy and quick to make for a weeknight dinner. My family loves this dish and so do I. Perfect dish to make with the leftover ham.
Stir in frozen peas and serve?
That’s my question…add frozen stir and serve???
Damn Delicious, I love your recipes! Made this tonight using the last of the never-ending Christmas ham. It was so good! Next time I may skip the peas, as I could live without them, and that seemed to be the thing that freaked my family out.
This is so delicious! Perfect for leftover Christmas ham. My son and I were thinking of lots of different veggies that would be tasty in this: broccoli, zucchini, spinach, asparagus. Maybe we’ll even try with it chicken sometime.
the details regarding the use of milk and cream appear to be missing, I suspect they are used prior to step 3, as part of makng the roue, has been left out
Please refer to step 3. Hope that helps!
3. 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.
Very delicious and easy to throw together!
Very good! My only deviation was making extra sauce (because my family loves sauce) and using mozzarella cheese. I thought I had Parmesan but discovered I was out when I was past the point of no return. Thank you for sharing this recipe.
I can’t rate this recipe fairly because I didn’t cook it as written. But I know that all of Chungah’s Damn Delicious recipes are amazing and never, ever disappoint. I didn’t have a full cup of parmesan so I added some mozzarella too. I didn’t have the dried herbs, so I used Italian seasoning instead. I didn’t have half and half so I used light cream instead. BUT, Chungah’s recipes are always perfection so I knew that a little tweek here and there would still make an amazing meal. And it did! My whole family said it was one of the best meals I’ve made! They said it’s a keeper and I need to put it in the rotation. So, again, Thank you Damn Delicious for this top notch recipe! Much appreciated!
Oh my – what can I say this was AMAZING!!! Definitely a keeper.
The ham doesn’t feed an “ARMY” OF 7-10 PEOPLE. I have 13 brothers and sisters and it doesn’t feed 6 people. I made the recipe and quadrupled it and cooked 2 of the hams with it. Next time I will make 3 of the recipes and cook 2 hams. The pasta was good, but I am not a basil fan so I didn’t add the basil and added salt to taste. Not bad.
I made this tonight because we had leftover ham and fresh noodles. It was delicious! Thank you so much Chungah!
I just made this the other day and it was OUTSTANDING! Restaurant quality, really impressive. Thank you!
Delicious use of leftover Christmas ham.
Really good.
My husband loved it. Would not change a thing.
Excellence recipe, my Family’s favorite