Summer Pasta
Looking for a quick and tasty easy dinner? This pasta recipe is bursting with fresh cherry tomatoes, torn basil and mozzarella cheese. A reader favorite!
Why You'll Love This Recipe
Easy pasta recipes are really nice to have on hand, year-round. After all, they hold well at room temperature, are super flexible, and can feed a few or a crowd. The star of the show in this Summer Pasta recipe is ripe, flavorful cherry tomatoes that are practically bursting off the vine right now.
A few more reasons to try this recipe:
Summer Pasta is an easy and versatile for dinner all by itself.
It's perfect to make for meal prep lunches (good warm or cold), make extra to have the next day.
Serve this as a side dish with grilled chicken or shrimp to round out your menu
Cherry tomatoes are a summer staple and easy to find at Farmer's Markets and most grocery stores. Any variety will work!
Olive Oil: I love a good, fruity extra virgin olive oil to lightly cook the shallots, and also to finish the pasta right before serving.
Shallot: Mild and almost sweet, shallots are great to use when you just need a few tablespoons of an onion.
Cherry Tomatoes: Any variety will work, and a mixture of colors is especially pretty.
Seasonings: The usual suspects - salt, pepper, red pepper flakes plus a little lemon juice and butter too.
Basil: Big, fresh, fragrant leaves for tearing and tossing with the warm tomatoes and pasta.
Mozzarrella Cheese: I like little balls of mild and creamy fresh mozzarella cheese that comes in a small tub with water (whey, actually) in the cheese section of most grocery stores.
Spaghetti: Fresh or dried, you'll need about 5 cups cooked.
There's no wrong choice of pasta, but a long variety like spaghetti is a great match for this tomato sauce.
I used a fresh variety of spaghetti pasta that's refrigerated and available in most grocery stores, but dried spaghetti is great too.
Here's a little How Much Pasta? guide I stumbled on if you're interested in scaling this recipe up. This is handy to have if you're up at night wondering about pasta portion sizes.
Place the olive oil and shallots in a large, non-stick saute pan and cook a few minutes until shallots are soft.
Add the cherry tomatoes and continue cooking until they break down a bit and release their juices, about 5 minutes.
The seasonings come next - salt, pepper, red pepper flakes. Continue cooking on medium-high heat another 5 minutes or so.
Add the fresh lemon juice and butter, then keep the sauce warm while you cook the pasta.
Cook pasta according to the package directions. Reserve a quarter cup of the pasta water before draining and adding to the tomato sauce. Use tongs to combine, and add a bit of the pasta water if needed to loosen the mixture up.
Add the basil leaves and mozzarella, plus a bit more salt and pepper, toss to combine.
Divide on four plates, drizzle more olive oil on top for serving!
Tips for Making Fresh Tomato Sauce
I'll tell you right now the thing that makes this pasta recipe so wonderfully juicy, slurpy and tasty is the big, chunky tomato sauce you make fresh as the base.
This technique came to me years ago from a generous co-worker, and I admit I didn't really believe it was possible. Up to that point, all the tomato sauce in my life up came out of a glass jar with a label on it, so I couldn't wait to make it from scratch.
Here's some tips for making it:
Get the freshest tomatoes you can find. Farmers Markets and well-stocked grocery stores are a good place to start. Any variety will work, and the more colorful, the better!
Cut the tomatoes in half or quarters if large, then add to a large non-stick saute pan with shallots that have been cooked in a little olive oil.
It doesn't look like there's any way this will turn into sauce at this point, but it will - I promise.
Cook the tomatoes on medium-high heat, and be patient - they'll slowly break down and get much juicier.
Season with salt, freshly ground pepper and some red pepper flakes, then finish with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a tablespoon of butter - don't skip this part, it makes a huge difference in the final flavor.
Tips and Serving Ideas
Good news! This is a highly forgiving recipe, meaning we-don't-have-to-measure-every-little-thing-perfectly-for-this-pasta.
Leftovers of Summer Pasta are so good, you'll find yourself making more just to have it for lunch the next day.
Serve this as a side dish alongside grilled fish or chicken! It pairs really well with lots of different menus, and everyone always loves it.
FAQ’s
Can you use different shapes of pasta with this recipe?
You sure can. Try bows, rigatoni, angel hair or linguini. Almost any pasta variety will work great!
How do I meal prep with this recipe?
Easy! Just cook the pasta, divide it in four containers, make the sauce and divide it, same with the mozzarella cheese and the fresh herbs.
How long will this keep in the refrigerator?
Pasta will stay well in the refrigerator for 4-5 days.Summer Pasta
Summer Pasta is a tasty, meatless recipe that relies on simple, fresh ingredients like cherry tomatoes, fresh herbs and mozzarella. Quick & Easy too!
Course: Dinner
Total Time: 35 minutes
Servings: 4
Ingredients
▢ 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
▢ 3 tablespoons Shallot, diced
▢ 4 cups Cherry Tomatoes, cut in half
▢ 1 teaspoon Salt
▢ 1 teaspoon Pepper, freshly ground
▢ ¼ teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes
▢ 1 teaspoon Lemon Juice
▢ 1 tablespoon Butter, unsalted
▢ 3 tablespoons Basil, fresh, torn in small pieces
▢ 1 cup Mozzarella, fresh, torn in pieces
▢ 9 ounce Spaghetti, fresh or dried, about 5 cups cooked
▢ Olive Oil, for serving
Instructions
Add the olive oil and diced shallot to a large non-stick saute pan and cook on medium-high heat until soft, 3-5 minutes. Then add the cherry tomatoes and gently stir to combine
Cook until the tomatoes break down and release their juices, about 4-5 minutes.
Add the salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Continue to cook on medium-high heat until the mixture is soft and juicy, another 5-7 minutes.
Add the lemon juice and butter, and stir gently to combine. Continue cooking for another minute or two. Keep the sauce warm with a lid on the saute pan on very low heat.
Cook pasta according package directions, adding a generous teaspoon of salt to the water before adding the pasta. Before draining, reserve ¼ cup of the pasta water and set it aside to loosen up the pasta and sauce once you combine them together.
Add the drained pasta to the saute pan with the tomato sauce, adding a little pasta water as needed. Gently toss everything together until combined. Remove the pan from the stove.
Add the torn mozzarella and fresh basil leaves and a pinch more salt and pepper.
Divide on four plates and drizzle olive oil on top for serving.
Notes
My everyday salt is Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt. I buy a big box and keep what I need in a small canning jar in the cupboard.
Fresh, refrigerated pasta works great in this recipe, but any long variety of dried pasta works well too.
Leftovers are VERY good cold or reheated for lunch the next day.
I love to serve this alongside salmon or other grilled fish, a chicken breast or add cooked shrimp to the pasta for a twist!