Puttanesca Pasta
Puttanesca is one of those sauces we genuinely get excited about. It's bold, briny, a little bit spicy, and it tastes like you've been cooking for hours even though it comes together in about 25 minutes. The combination of olives, capers, chilli and garlic hitting a hot pan is one of the best smells in cooking, full stop. This is the pasta we make when we want something seriously satisfying on a weeknight without any faff. Trust us, once you make this you'll be coming back to it again and again.
Before You Start
- Large saucepan
- Colander
- Boiling water ready in a large pan for pasta
Ingredients
- 2 small red chillis - fresh or diced
- 20g flat leaf parsley
- 10 Kalamata olives
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1 tbsp capers - plus 1 tbsp of brine from the jar
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- ½ tsp salt - plus a little extra
- 700g Passata
- 220g tenderstem broccoli
- 500g spaghetti
- Juice of 1 lemon
Method
Rip the stems from the chillies
- Cut them in half lengthways and remove the seeds if you prefer a milder sauce, and finely chop
- Separate the parsley stalks and finely chop, reserving the leaves for later
- Stone and roughly chop the olives
Peel 2 of the garlic cloves
- Pour 2 tablespoons of the oil into the empty saucepan, crush in the garlic and add the chillies, parsley stalks, olives and capers and stir for 2–3 minutes
- Add the 1⁄2 teaspoon salt and 1 tablespoon of the salty brine water from the jar of capers
- Leave to cook for a minute, then add the passata
- Taste and season with salt if necessary
- Turn the heat to medium and leave to simmer while you move on to the next step
Cook the spaghetti
- Add the spaghetti to the pan of boiling water along with the remaining 2 garlic cloves
- Cook until al dente, following the instructions on the packet
Meanwhile, prepare the broccoli
- Carefully slice the broccoli stems from top to bottom, creating thin strips
- Add these to the spaghetti pan for the last 30 seconds of cooking time to quickly soften
- Drain the pasta and broccoli in a colander and return them to the pan
- Pour over the sauce
Roughly chop the parsley leaves and add them to the pan
- Pour over the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil and squeeze over the juice of a whole lemon, catching any pips in your other hand
- Mix everything together and serve immediately
Tips & Variations
- Go easy on the salt: The olives and capers bring loads of saltiness already, so taste before you season. We've been caught out by this one more than once.
- Adjust the heat: Leave the chilli seeds in if you like things spicy, or take them out for something a little more mellow. Either way, don't skip the chilli entirely, it really does make the dish.
- Use the pasta water: Before you drain your pasta, save a mug of the starchy cooking water. Stir a splash into the sauce at the end and it helps everything cling together beautifully.
Why This Works
The trick here is building the base slowly, letting the garlic, chilli, parsley stalks, olives and capers cook together in that oil before anything else goes in. Those stalks might seem like something you'd normally chuck away, but they carry so much flavour. What really makes this sing is the layering of salty, spicy and savoury all at once, so every mouthful punches well above its weight.