Spicy Garlic Pasta – Aglio e Olio Is an Italian Classic; Make It From Scratch in 20 Minutes!
Good cooking doesn’t have to take a long time, especially when you’re cooking Italian, which is all about the simple preparation of a few good ingredients.
Tired at the end of a long day at work and wondering if you have the strength to prepare something homemade and tasty for dinner? – Well once you’ve got this dish in your repertoire you’ll never again have to resort to something from the freezer foods section again!
This dish can be made in about 20 minutes – or just as long as it takes to boil some water and cook some spaghetti. It is also made with ingredients that you more than likely have on hand in the pantry – so no special shopping trip is required.
Pasta Aglio and Olio (Spicy Garlic and Olive Oil Sauce) for 4
- About 1 pound of dried spaghetti
- ½ cup of extra virgin olive oil
- 5 cloves of garlic, minced
- ½ tsp of so of dried red chili, or 2 or 3 small dried chillies roughly chopped
- Salt and pepper to taste
- A little fresh chopped parsley to finish (A few spoonfuls)
- Bring a generous pot of salted water to the boil for the pasta and boil according to the directions on the package, about 8 minutes for normal sized spaghetti. For best results, start tasting the noodles a couple of minutes before you think they’ll be done so you can get them off just as soon as their cooked to your liking.
- As the pasta cooks, heat the oil in a skillet over medium. Once the oil has come to temperature, add in the garlic and sauté it for a minute or so, or until it is just turning light golden. Turn off the heat, add in the chili pepper and let the garlic continue to cook to a nice golden brown in the slowly cooling oil as the pasta finishes cooking.
- Once the pasta is cooked, transfer it (without rinsing) to the skillet with the oil and the garlic. Add in about ½ cup to a cup of the pasta water and stir and toss to coat the pasta completely (you don’t want things to stick together here and the starch form the pasta will dry things out a little bit, which is why you add the pasta water – this is a good trick for any kind of pasta.) Add in the chopped parsley and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Delicious – serve, with some crusty bread and a simple salad for an as easy as it gets after work meal.
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