This Puttanesca Pasta is all about a tasty homemade tomato sauce with olives, garlic, basil, anchovy and spinach served over your favourite cut of pasta.
You guys!
This pasta! It’s dinner tonight! And I already want seconds!
This healthy Puttanesca Pasta is my new and absolute favourite pasta to come out of the NOURISHED. kitchen and I just can’t get enough. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my Creamy Spinach Pesto Pasta and my Creamy Stove-top Mac and Cheese pasta, but the Puttanesca, has taken my heart and wrapped it in a pretty little bowl of homemade tomato sauce, olives, spinach, basil and whole-grain pasta deliciousness.
If you haven’t dabbled into the realm of Puttanesca before, you have to jump on board ASAP. Because it is nutritious and delicious. And Puttanesca, it is just so much fun to say! Puuuttanessscaah!
And I’m done.
But I mean, look at that sauce!
Disclaimer: This pasta is not for the olive-, anchovy- or garlic-opposed. Olives, anchovy and garlic and lots of all of the above are an absolute must. And in my opinion, the more olive, anchovy and garlic you can fit into this pasta, the better! Olive haters, you best check this out instead. And if you are totally freaked out by cooking with anchovies, I swear, they make this dish. Although anchovies may smell a little fishy, they don’t taste fishy. They taste salty and kind of have that umami thing going on that is all the rage these days. And if little, brined fish bother you like they kind of bother me, use anchovy paste instead! All the same anchovy goodness but just in a tube.
This is the ultimate in savoury, totally delish, I am so full but just need to take one more bite because it is that good kind of pasta. You know, the kind of pasta where you hide the leftovers in the back of the fridge so a certain hungry fiancé doesn’t eat them all when you weren’t home. And dare I say, the kind of pasta that is healthy for you too.
It’s just so good.
And although I am quite partial to the 100% whole wheat spaghetti, this puttanesca pasta dish can easily be made gluten free by using brown rice spaghetti or your favourite GF pasta (corn or quinoa pasta are super tasty too!).
Best of all, I love the extra nutrition packed into this pasta dinner from not-so-tradition Puttanesca ingredients – the chickpeas, spinach and whole-wheat spaghetti. Even though they are not normally found within a Pasta a la Puttanesca dish, they work so well and fit in as if they were supposed to be there anyway.
Healthy Puttanesca Pasta
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Description
A healthy Puttanesca Pasta recipe. A tasty homemade tomato sauce with olives, garlic, basil, anchovy and spinach served over your favourite type of pasta. A delicious dinner can be made in just minutes!
Ingredients
- 3/4 lb pasta, I like spaghetti here but you can use you favourite cut
- 2 tablespoons EVOO
- 5 cloves garlic, finely grated
- 2 tablespoons anchovy paste
- scant 1/2 teaspoon chili flakes, or more if you like it hot!!
- 2 1/2 cups homemade tomato basil sauce
- 1/3 cup chopped kalamata olives, pits removed
- 1/2 cup chickpeas
- a BIG handful baby spinach (about 1 cup)
- 1/4 cup basil
- Fresh ground pepper, cooked pasta of choice and plain goat cheese, for serving
Instructions
- Cook pasta according to box directions (in salted boiling water for about 12 minutes)
- Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat and cook garlic, anchovy and chili flakes until really fragrant, about a minute.
- Stir tomato sauce into the skillet, making sure to scrap any garlic bits stuck to the bottom of the pan off into the sauce, until well incorporated.
- Add olives and chickpeas to the pan and reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until warm through.
- When pasta is just about done, remove about 1/3 cup of starchy cooking liquid from the pasta pot and add to the sauce in the skillet. Stir to incorporate and add spinach, basil and fresh ground pepper.
- Drain the pasta then transfer it to the skillet of sauce. Remove skillet from heat and stir until pasta is well coated in the sauce.
- Serve with a dollop of plain goat cheese and another sprinkling of fresh ground pepper.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
Rebecca Dwyre is the holistic nutritionist, recipe creator and photographer behind Always Nourished. Being diagnosed with PCOS in 2018 was unexpected and devastating for her. Since then she’s been on her own PCOS Freedom journey and has learned so much about managing Polycystic Ovary Syndrome with food and lifestyle that she’s made it her mission to share what she has learned so that other women with PCOS don’t have to struggle like she did. 
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