You can call me an honorary Italian because I could live off of pasta. It is my ultimate comfort food, my go-to easy meal, and I love it all. Stuffed pasta, creamy pasta, light pasta, it doesn’t matter to me as long as it’s pasta! So, I try to have a few go-to quick and easy meals that I make on busy weeknights or weekends where I can’t be bothered to stay in the kitchen for very long. I came up with this pasta one night because I needed to use up some ingredients in my fridge. I never originally created it to share on the blog. But it’s so easy and delicious, I knew I had to share!
Fresh Tomato Pasta
This dish is perfect for summer because it’s fresh, light, and it includes most ingredients people keep regularly in their kitchen. You just throw all the sauce ingredients into one pan and then you can get other tasks accomplished (or relax after a long day) while you wait. It doesn’t get any easier than this.
The base of the sauce is olive oil so I would recommend a good quality olive oil for this sauce. The better the olive oil, the better the dish. I always use Batistini Farms olive oil. It is the absolute best! I am not sponsored by the company, I just truly love their olive oils. Fresh herbs are the other ingredients that really make this dish pop. I feel fresh herbs are highly underrated in cooking, especially with summer dishes. It makes everything taste crisp and light. Don’t hold out on those fresh herbs!
Coconut sugar helps balance out the acidity of the tomatoes and lemon so it is a must. I don’t recommend leaving that ingredient out. As for the tomatoes, I used grape tomatoes and sliced them in half. However, I have used large tomatoes for this recipe as well and just sliced them about the size of a halved grape tomato. It is good either way. When my garden tomatoes start coming in this summer, I will definitely be swapping the grape tomatoes for the ones from my garden!
Fresh Tomato Pasta
- Prep Time: 3 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 2 servings 1x
Ingredients
- 2 cups grape tomatoes sliced in half
- 1 8oz box pasta (I like Banza)
- juice from half a lemon
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 2 teaspoons coconut sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon fresh chopped thyme
- 10 large basil leaves chopped
- 1–2 cups fresh spinach
Instructions
- Cook pasta according to box directions then drain and rinse.
- In a nonstick pan (I use the Always pan), turn to medium heat. Add all ingredients except for the basil and spinach.
- Let the sauce simmer on medium-low heat for about 10 minutes or until the tomatoes have softened.
- Once tomatoes are soft, add in spinach and stir. Let sauce continue to simmer until spinach has wilted (approx. 1-2 minutes).
- After spinach is wilted, add in pasta and stir to coat the sauce.
- Top with fresh basil and enjoy!
Notes
*Do not heat sauce higher than medium temperature because the garlic will burn.