Trofie pasta in pesto sauce. Thomas Barwick/Getty Images

One of my favorite quick pastas, this is especially great in summer, when fresh basil is in abundance. But it's easy to make a big batch of pesto sauce and freeze the extra in ice-cube trays, so that you can always have some pesto on hand even outside of summer. Just mix a few frozen cubes into your cooked pasta together with some of the pasta-cooking water.