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Pasta puttanesca on a white plate.
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Pasta Puttanesca

Prep Time5 minutes
Cook Time20 minutes
Total Time25 minutes
Servings: 2 servings
Author: Aleksandra

Ingredients

  • 8 oz (225g) spaghetti pasta
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon butter or olive oil
  • 5 cloves garlic finely chopped (with a knife)
  • ½ teaspoon chili flakes or to taste
  • 10 anchovies in oil drained and roughly chopped
  • 15 kalamata olives (or black) pitted and cut in half
  • 2 tablespoons capers drained and rinsed
  • 1 can crushed tomatoes (14 oz / 400g) or tomato passata/tomato puree
  • ½ cup pasta cooking water
  • ½ teaspoon sugar optional
  • salt and black pepper to taste
  • 3 tablespoons chopped parsley to serve
  • grated parmesan to serve

Instructions

  • Cook the spaghetti al dente (it should have a bite to it) in a small amount of well-salted water. Reserve about a ½ cup of the pasta cooking water (!).
  • Prepare the ingredients: finely chop the garlic (do not use a garlic press), roughly chop the anchovies, drain and rinse the capers, and cut the olives in half.
  • Heat the olive oil and butter in a large frying pan, add the garlic, chili flakes, and anchovies, cook over medium-low heat, stirring, for 1 minute.
  • Add the olives, capers, crushed tomatoes/passata, and pasta cooking water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low and cook for 15 minutes (stirring from time to time) until the sauce is thickened. After this time, season the sauce lightly with salt and pepper. Be careful with adding salt, because anchovies, olives, and capers are already salty. Take the pan off the heat.
  • Add the cooked pasta to the pan, toss with the sauce.
  • Sprinkle with chopped parsley, grated parmesan, and serve immediately.
  • Enjoy!

Notes

  • Although there are 10 anchovies listed in the ingredient list, don't worry, this dish won't taste fishy.
  • Servings: 2 dinner servings or 4 appetizer servings. These are light dinner serving, to make this more filling you can add canned tuna to the dish.
  • How to season the pasta to your liking: I added sugar to my recipe because my tomatoes were a little on the sour side. You can omit the sugar. Add a pich at first and taste the sauce. If it tastes too sour or you feel it lacks 'something' it's probably either lack of salt or sugar. If it turns out too sweet you can add more capers or balsamic vinegar (or lemon juice) to the sauce.
  • Calories count = 1 serving (1/2 of the recipe).

Nutrition

Calories: 645kcal