It’s 5pm on a Friday. You’re about to log off for the next 48 hours and you’ve promised yourself you won’t think about your Monday morning meetings until at least midway through Sunday evening. In two and a half hours, friends will be arriving for dinner and you are planning (admittedly at the last minute) what you’re going to serve them.

You don’t have long enough to make anything resembling a multi-dish feast or quite enough skill to whip up the kind of soufflé centrepiece that some recipe books would have you making. So, you settle on the most crowd-pleasing dish you know: pasta.

The question now is: how do you make this pasta impressive enough to serve in the middle of the table for dinner with friends? How can you, without too much extra effort, differentiate this pasta from your Wednesday night ‘throw it together’ meals that involve similar ingredients? If this scenario is familiar to you, keep reading.

We asked some of the coolest pro chefs we know (women who all regularly eat, cook and develop pasta recipes) to tell us what they do to elevate their pasta dishes. From Sophie Wyburd’s easy way to make a tasty, crispy topping to Alexina Anatole’s golden rule for getting the right salt-to-pasta water ratio (spoiler: it shouldn’t be as salty as the sea), here’s everything you need to know about making easy, impressive pasta-based meals at home…

10 easy ways to elevate any pasta dish for your next dinner party (from secret ingredients to show-stopping garnishes)