Easy Peasy Pasta
This one is a proper weeknight hero. We keep coming back to it because it's packed with vegetables, bursting with those deep, punchy Mediterranean flavours, and honestly feels way more impressive than the effort involved. You've got sweet peppers, jammy tomatoes, briny olives and capers all coming together with pasta in the most satisfying way. It's the kind of meal that makes you feel good about what you're eating without feeling like you've been virtuous about it. Make this tonight and you will not be disappointed.
Before You Start
- Preheat oven to 200°C
- Lasagne dish
- Large pan for pasta
- Colander
Ingredients
- 8 tbsp oil - ideally from the sun-dried tomato jar
- 2 red onions
- 4 garlic cloves
- 100g sun-dried tomatoes
- 40g baby spinach
- 50g capers
- 2 small courgettes
- 100g Kalamata olives
- 500g cherry tomatoes
- 350g Passata
- 320g fusilli pasta
- 30g basil leaves
- Salt & pepper to taste
- 2 red bell peppers
Method
Prepare the vegetables
- Peel and finely slice the onions and garlic
- Cut the peppers in half, cut out the stems and seeds and slice into thin strips
- Slice the sun-dried tomatoes
- Finely chop the spinach leaves and capers and chop the courgettes into bite-sized chunks
- Halve the olives and tomatoes
Put all the vegetables into the lasagne dish
- Season all over with salt and pepper
- Pour over the oil and passata and stir to ensure all the vegetables are covered
- Cover the dish with foil and put it in the oven to roast for 30 minutes
Take the dish out of the oven
- Remove the foil, stir everything and put the dish back in the oven for a further 15 minutes
Meanwhile, prepare the pasta
- Boil the kettle and pour the boiling water into a large pan on a high heat
- Add the pasta and a big pinch of salt and cook until al dente, following the instructions on the packet
- Drain the cooked pasta through a colander and tip it back into the pan
Time to serve
- Take the lasagne dish out of the oven, stir in the basil leaves and pour your freshly roasted veggie sauce over the pasta
- Stir so that it’s well mixed, serve and enjoy!
Tips & Variations
- Prep ahead: You can chop all the vegetables the night before and keep them in the fridge, which makes this genuinely fast on a busy evening.
- Swap the pasta: We love this with rigatoni or penne because the chunky shapes hold onto the sauce brilliantly, but honestly use whatever you've got in the cupboard.
- Make it spicy: Henry always adds a pinch of chilli flakes to his portion at the end. If you like a bit of heat, stir some in with the passata and it takes the whole thing up a level.
Why This Works
The trick here is getting all those vegetables properly seasoned and coated in oil before they go anywhere near heat, so every single one of them absorbs flavour as they cook down together. The passata brings everything together into this gorgeous, rich sauce that clings to the pasta. Sun-dried tomatoes are the secret weapon, they add this intense, almost caramelised depth that fresh tomatoes alone just can't match.