For some of us of a certain age, a personal history of pasta really begins with a can bearing the likeness of a certain grinning, mustachioed fellow in a white toque.

Chef Boyardee often introduced Americans who grew up hundreds of miles from the nearest community of Italian immigrants to the magic of pasta in tomato-based sauces. When I was a kid growing up in the central-California city of Fresno, those vacuum-sealed steel cylinders packed with beef ravioli were about the most ethnically distinctive offering on the shelves at my family’s local supermarket. And though the Chef and I have since lost touch, I ultimately have to credit him with sparking my lifelong love of pasta.

The intervening decades have seen pasta evolve from an Italian specialty to a multiethnic American mealtime staple. Because it’s famously inexpensive, enormously versatile, highly satisfying, and an especially effective carrier of different flavors and sauces, restaurateurs and packaged-food manufacturers never seem to run out of creative things to do with pasta.

Strictly speaking, of course, pasta isn’t fast food—not in the traditional sense, anyway. No one I’m aware of has come up with a delivery device or product formulation that would turn pasta into a handheld meal capable of being consumed in the car or on the run—yet. That said, pasta has proved to be a profitable niche for restaurant chains ranging from casual concepts such as Romano’s Macaroni Grill to regional fast-casual chains such as Pasta Pomodoro and Fazoli’s.

So setting aside for the moment the question of how a greater number of chains might adapt their operations and menus to accommodate pasta offerings, let’s survey the modern pasta landscape for a sense of what creative menu developers and restaurateurs are doing with this toothsome, starchy mainstay of the dinner daypart.

Whole-Grain Formulations

With Americans now paying closer attention to their dietary fiber intake, we’re seeing a sustained push to replace traditional, enriched-flour pastas with varieties made from whole grains. Recently, a very large milling company invited chefs from numerous chain restaurants to northern California for the purpose of creating and tasting pastas made from white, whole wheat, and barley flours. Specialty grocery store shelves are now stocked with pastas made from Italian heritage wheats, faro, buckwheat, brown rice, and other interesting grains. While flavors vary, many whole-grain pastas boast a pleasingly nutty, earthy taste that many diners actually prefer to the more neutral profile of classic spaghettis, macaronis, and linguinis.

Lighter Sauces & Flavors

Alfredo is fading and carbonara is cooling as more and more chefs migrate away from thick, heavy, creamy sauces and gravitate instead toward flavoring with olive oil, piquant dry cheeses, fresh vegetables and herbs, chiles, spices, citrus derivatives, fish, and cured meats.

At the newly opened and already phenomenally popular SPQR in San Francisco, featured dinner dishes include pleasingly simple concoctions such as spaghetti with pecorino and Romano cheeses and black pepper and trombette pasta with Romanesco broccoli and ricotta salata cheese. A short few miles away, at the legendary Delfina, pasta selections include bigoli with fresh Monterey Bay sardines and Calabrian chiles, as well as spaghetti with plum tomatoes, garlic, extra virgin olive oil, and peperoncini.

Risotto on the Rise

Risotto technically isn’t a pasta, though the dishes tend to travel in similar circles. And where risotto once was a relatively rare figure on U.S. restaurant menus, it is now drawing considerable attention from mainstream chains. Pasta Pomodoro is reportedly adding a seasonal risotto and a version flecked with sausage and saffron to its menu, while the Rock Bottom Brewery chain now serves up a risotto tossed with tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, spinach, and asparagus.

Given that it can be shaped, molded, and formed in any number of different ways, risotto also suggests possibilities for handheld offerings. Arancini is a tasty Italian treat—little fried risotto balls wrapped around a lump of cheese. Imagine an enterprising fast-food chain adapting this novel yet utterly approachable concept to suit the tastes of American fast-food fanatics.

Universal Noodles

Mindful that the raw materials are essentially the same from culture to culture, a growing number of creative fast-casual restaurateurs are bridging the traditional divides among noodles of European, Asian, and American origin.

At the Texas-based chain Noodles & Company, Pad Thai, primavera, and mac-and-cheese stir it up on the same menu in a thoroughly cohesive and logical way. At Fuzio Universal Pasta, the story is much the same. From linguini and meatballs to Shanghai noodles to Southwestern gemelli pasta with chicken and chipotle sauce to four-cheese ravioli, the emphasis is squarely on pasta as a passport for the palate. Meanwhile, The Nothing but Noodles chain, which has locations from Arizona to Pennsylvania, takes a similar approach to starches and sauces. If your preferences run to comfort food, beef stroganoff and buttery egg noodles might make the grade, while those with somewhat more exotic tastes might delight in the concept’s sesame lo mein or basil pesto farfalle.

Though the vast majority of quick-serve and fast-casual chains obviously don’t play in the pasta sandbox, there is nonetheless a lesson for all operators in the level of creativity and fresh thinking that has been applied to the basic noodle. By looking at a simple carrier in unusual ways, by ignoring the barriers that have traditionally separated major ethnic-food categories, and by identifying healthy, flavorful products, operators can create memorable new menu offerings without an extraordinary investment of resources.