One Pot Tortellini with Mushrooms

The best creamy mushroom tortellini recipe for busy weeknights! Everything cooks in one pan for minimal washing up, while a few key ingredients transform this from basic to restaurant level. It’s super flexible to fit what is in your fridge and can be made budget friendly too.

This is one of those perfect recipes where the easy factor doesn’t take anything away from the delicious factor, and it will be a bright spark in your meal plan. Good enough for a date night, easy enough for a busy weeknight, and it can be really affordable depending on where you shop.

To make a one pot tortellini, we simply add the uncooked pasta right into the creamy sauce, and it cooks within a couple of minutes. The starch given off by the pasta while it cooks helps to thicken the sauce and bind it to the tortellini.

You now have one pan to clean, and no draining to deal with, and life is good.

Ingredients: What You Need + What is Flexible

This recipe can be used as a template to adapt to your own preferences, and as you learn the process for cooking the tortellini in the pan with the sauce, you will be able to create your own versions.

I promised you “restaurant level”, which was bold! For me the kicker is the butter and the mix of herbs, so if you want that really special and luxurious edge to the dish, please do honor that aspect of the recipe. Otherwise, we are super flexible. I am going to dissect the recipe for you in the list below to give you the insight you need to adapt it to your needs…

• Tortellini: I use fresh tortellini, the kind you get in the refrigerator section that cooks in 2-3 minutes. I used a cheese tortellini but you can use any flavor you like.
• Mushrooms : Chestnut mushrooms are my choice here, but any kind will do. If you use something larger such as portobellos, just cut them into chunks.
• Garlic : I used a few cloves of minced garlic which is enough, I feel, to give a nice savory taste to the sauce and offset the mushrooms. Half of a minced red onion, or a couple of small shallots, are also excellent additions which work well in this dish, so definitely add those if you want to.
• Seasonings : I love to use fennel seeds and dried sage in this recipe. Those ingredients evoke a sausage-y flavor which feels at home here. I do highly recommend this combination for the “restaurant style” flavor I promised, but I’ve also tried this with herbs de Provence, dried Italian herbs, fresh sage, and you can’t go too wrong – but whatever you do, I highly encourage you to throw some fennel seeds in. They’re just so perfect.
• Salted Butter: is added alongside the seasonings just to carry the flavor and add richness to the mushrooms and the sauce. If you want to leave this out, go ahead, but add some salt and pepper to make sure it’s not ending up too bland. For me, the butter, fennel seeds and sage are what can really tip this dish into having a restaurant style flavor, although I appreciate that everyday cooking needs to be lighter sometimes.
• Cream + Vegetable Stock / Broth : is what makes the sauce. At first it’s very runny, but then as the tortellini cooks it thickens right up. I used double (heavy) cream; you can lighten this up with a single cream / half and half if you wish, but it will be a little thinner and runnier.
• Cheese : We don’t use a huge amount of cheese here, but a handful of strongly flavored cheese does add a lot of delicious flavor. I go for an Italian hard cheese (parmesan style) but I have also tried it with a mature cheddar and that worked well too, so no need to go out and buy a new block of cheese.
• Greens: I use baby spinach – it is a totally optional mix in. You could also throw in some finely chopped kale. If you don’t have any fresh greens to hand but want something green, add some frozen peas! Just mix them in at the end and give them a minute or two to thaw.
• Lemon Zest: Totally optional, but I love this as a little garnish at the end. If you have lemons to hand, especially if you need lemon juice on another occasion in the same week, then it’s really worth including.