
INGREDIENTS
- 8 ounces spaghetti pasta snapped in half
- 3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1/3 cup diced sun-dried tomatoes
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
- 5 cloves garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
- Add olive oil and garlic to a 3 quart or larger pan. Cook over medium heat until the garlic is browned, a few minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add 4 cups of water and the spaghetti to the pan. Bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until spaghetti is tender, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Decrease the heat to medium. Add parmesan cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, parsley, and pepper. Stir until the cheese has melted. Serve immediately while hot.
Spaghetti aglio e olio means spaghetti with garlic and oil in Italian. It’s usually cooked by first sautéing minced garlic in olive oil and then mixing with spaghetti, grated parmesan cheese, red pepper flakes, and parsley. This is one of my favorite simple pasta dishes — I’ve already made it twice in the past few days — and its pasta sauce (if you can even call it that) is merely comprised of melted parmesan cheese and pasta water.
The sauce has no cream and there isn’t even any salt in this recipe. You don’t need any salt, even in the cooking of the pasta, and you won’t miss it at all. Just enjoy the natural flavors from the ingredients, which taste fantastic.
This recipe is how I make spaghetti aglio e olio at home, and it’s a little different from how you’ll typically find it served in restaurants. Here are the main differences:
- No red pepper flakes. I love my spicy foods (mmm spicy deviled eggs and bacon wrapped jalapeño peppers), but this is one of those dishes where any spiciness would overwhelm all of the other flavors going on. I want to be able to really taste all of the ingredients without distraction and so my version of aglio e olio is not spicy.
- One pot only. All of the other recipes that I’ve seen for aglio e olio ask that you cook the spaghetti noodles in a separate pot of boiling water. I make everything in the same pot, including the spaghetti, so you don’t need to wrangle more than one pot for this recipe. The added benefit of this? The pasta water, or water used for boiling and cooking the pasta, is automatically re-used to form the pasta sauce for the spaghetti.
- Sun-dried tomatoes. Mr. Savory Tooth and I are huge fans of sun-dried tomatoes so I always use them when I make aglio e olio. I love the extra burst of tart flavor, not to mention how it adds a nice pop of color to the finished dish.
This recipe yields two good-sized servings — great for Friday date nights at home or any occasion where you want a simple romantic dinner. Yes, there is a good amount of garlic in this dish, so maybe it’s not the most romantic dish that you want to serve on Valentine’s Day, but if you and your partner are garlic junkies like myself and Mr. Savory Tooth, it’s all good.
A few tips on making spaghetti aglio e olio:
- I use spaghetti type pasta for this recipe, so the cooking time estimate below is specifically for spaghetti. If you use a different type of pasta, your cooking time will differ. I recommend using thin noodles only so that it doesn’t take long to cook. If you use angel hair pasta, you may only need to use about 3 cups of water and 5 minutes to cook the noodles.
- This dish is best eaten while hot. Once it cools, the noodles will become sticky since it’s covered with parmesan cheese. You want to eat it while it’s hot and the noodles are still silky smooth. Keep the dish on a burner to keep it hot if you’re not serving immediately.
- You can eat this spaghetti on its own, or pair with a nice Greek salad or crusty bread. If you’re looking for a heartier accompaniment, I recommend serving it alongside chicken parmesan or pork chops.
Julia I liked it..very tasty, but not very low carb! I used Dreamfields spaghetti which is still 41G
This is definitely not low carb. There’s a note on the top of the post explaining this.
Question: After the spaghetti is cooked o you drain the water from the pot before adding the other ingredients?
No, you keep the water in the pan, which becomes part of the sauce.
This recipe sounds and looks so good. I can’t help but to think that it would be a bit watery since you don’t drain it. Does the parmesan cheese prevent that?
It’s not watery because the dry spaghetti absorbs water as it cooks, there’s also evaporation going on for 10 minutes over high heat (Step 2), and the parmesan helps thicken it up.
Hi Julia, me and my son are big fans of pasta in general and we want to try this one-pot method… but need to know this first… isn’t pasta always added only after the water is already boiling? Your recipe adds spaghetti and water at the same time, which I am wondering about.
Correct, this is a different method that I prefer for its convenience (one-pan only) and you get to re-use the pasta water for the sauce.
I use both tomatoes dry and in oil. Have you tried both and which is better?
I use dried sun-dried tomatoes. I haven’t used the ones in oil, but that should work well also.
Hi Julia. I haven’t made this recipe yet, but intend to. For those of us used to the traditional method of cooking pasta (generous, rolling boiling water) this sounds as if it just wouldn’t work but 4 cups is not very much water at all so you can see it is quite a different method and yes, the starch from the pasta cooking would be the ‘thickener’ for the sauce.
I’m very interested to see how it works out. grazie! buona cucina! Maria – the Little Cellar Rat Hill of Promise Winery Childers QLD Aust
Yummy and fast. I’ve made a similar recipe for years, with addition of feta cheese and sliced green olives. One of our favorites. Love how simple this is! Thanks!
Have not made the aglio e olio but cannot wait to try it, which will be soon. Do you have a recipe for Spaghetti San Giuseppe? This was a white spaghetti dish which I loved as a kid growing up. My maternal grandparents, natives of a tiny “burg” in Sicily, were very, very devoted to St. Joseph and each year observed the feast day (March 19) in a special way. This was one of the traditional dishes and all I remember about it was it was white (no red sauce, no parm cheese, altho I would use it) and
was covered in coarse bread crumbs with parsley flakes mixed in) and the bread crumbs tasted sweet – there had to be a bit of sugar thrown in somewhere. I would love to know if this is something you’re familiar with. Thanks –
Thanks for sharing! Can’t wait to try this tonight.
You’re welcome! Hope you enjoy this 🙂
Hi Julia,
The indicated 530 kcal is for per serving or the whole pot (2 serving) ?
Thanks
The calorie information is per serving. Let me know if you have any other questions!
Hi, from Sofia, Bulgaria!
Congratulations on wonderful recipes!
It`s hard for me to work with ounce, Is it possible to indicate weight.
Thank you!
Greetings! Maria
Hi Maria! Ounces are a unit of weight. In this recipe, 8 ounces spaghetti = 227 grams. Hope that helps!