Hi friends, hope you all had a relaxing and fun Easter break!
I felt like starting this week with a meat free recipe and here is my baked vegetarian pasta – both orecchiette and olive pasta sauce courtesy of Barilla.
This baked pasta was a twist to spaghetti alla puttanesca. The twists were I have substituted the pasta from spaghetti to orecchiette, anchovies were omitted and topped with melted cheese. I felt like I haven’t made baked pasta for ages! Oh how I missed the gooey melted cheese! I love how olive and capers have the cut-through effect on the decadence melted cheese.
Orecchiette with olive, capers & chili, featuring Barilla Pasta & Sauce
Ingredients
- Olive oil
- 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 1 long chili (adjust to taste), deseeded & finely chopped
- 50g kalamata olives, pitted & sliced
- 2 tsps capers, rinsed & desalted
- 1 x 400g Barilla Olive Pasta Sauce
- Sugar to taste
- 350g Orecchiette
- A handful of shredded cheese
- A bunch of mini asparagus, trimmed
Instructions
- In a medium-sized pot, add olive oil.When the olive oil is hot, saute garlic and chili over low heat until aromatic.
- Add kalamata olives, capers and the olive pasta sauce (be careful of the splattering!). Cook the sauce until heated through. Season with sugar and set the sauce aside. (Note- I didn't add any salt to the sauce as there's salt content in capers and olives).
- Cook the orecchiette according to packet instructions. I used the Barilla brand and the recommended cooking time was 12 minutes, but I undercooked the pasta by a minute. Drained.
- Toss the cooked orecchiette in the pasta sauce. Transfer the pasta to a baking dish - I used a lightly greased 24cm Le Creuset Pie Dish.
- Sprinkle cheese on top; arrange mini asparagus on top of the cheese, followed by a light sprinkling of cheese.
- Melt the cheese under a broiler. Serve immediately.
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