Pasta

Cuisine: Italian

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Serves: 3

If you want to know how to make pasta, here’s a super easy recipe that’s a definite crowd-pleaser. Creamy, delicious, and super quick!

Any pasta of your liking
Ricotta cheese
Spinach (chopped)
Parmesan cheese (grated)
Garlic(minced)
Lemon zest
Lemon juice
Extra virgin olive oil
Basil
Black pepper
Salt

An Italian delicacy with spinach and lots of cheese!

In a large pot, bring water to a boil. Add a pinch of salt, and cook ½ lb pasta of your choice until al dente, cooked but firm enough to be bitten into.
Once almost cooked, reserve about ½ a cup of the pasta water.
Add the 2 cups of chopped spinach to the pot and cook with the pasta for another minute. Drain them and set them aside in the same pot.
Mix 1 cup of ricotta cheese, ⅓ cup of parmesan cheese, 2 cloves of minced garlic, 1 teaspoon lemon zest, the juice of one lemon, and 1 tablespoon olive oil in a bowl. Add a pinch of salt and some black pepper to it according to your preference.
Set the pasta pot on the stove at medium heat, and add the mixture and some reserved pasta water.
Stir well, and add more pasta water, if necessary, to make the pasta creamy.
Top it with some grated parmesan cheese and fresh basil leaves, and serve hot.

Chef Tip: If you’d like a more filling pasta dish, you may add grilled prawns or fried bacon bits when the pasta is almost ready. You can add more cheese to this recipe for a quick mac n’ cheese as well.

You can whip up this easy pasta recipe in no time, and add your twist to enhance this versatile dish according to your taste. Try this recipe at home today and tell us in the comments below how your family looks forward to dining at an Italian restaurant from the comfort of your kitchen!

Quick Bites

Fun Fact

Al dente is a culinary term, translating to “to the tooth” in Italy, and is used to describe the right cooking extent for kinds of pasta emphasizing that pasta has to be cooked just enough to be 'firm to bite' but not too hard or too mushy.
Until and unless it is al dente’, it's not done al righte’. Just kidding!

Historical Fact

There are several theories regarding the origin of pasta. An infamous legend has it that Marco Polo while returning from one of his trips to China in 1271, brought this dish to Italy.
But some historians contradict this myth as they believed pasta was already a ‘thing’ in Sicily, Sardinia, and Cagliari before Marco Polo’s return from China.

Nutrition Fact

One cup of plain pasta contains 196 calories of which 10 are from fat. It has 1.2g of fat, 1.2mg of sodium, 55mg of potassium, 38g of carbohydrates, 7.2g of proteins, and 0mg of cholesterol.
Pasta has a good amount of carbohydrates and dietary fibers that keep you energetic, it provides minerals like selenium that has antioxidant properties assisting in protecting the cells and manganese that regulate blood sugar levels, its low sodium, and cholesterol levels make it an excellent choice if you are on a diet.