A light and bright lemon parsley pasta dish with olive oil to enjoy as a spring or summer dinner meal.
The dish contains fresh herbs and tastes better if you pick quality ingredients, just like the Italians would. Video and process shots will be added tomorrow!
Ingredients
This pasta shines when prepared with fresh or whole spices. I'll explain here what to look out for.
For all US and metric measurement details, please see the recipe card further below.
- Pasta + Salt Water — I recommend a spiral shaped pasta so that the seasoned herb olive oil spread all over the pasta dish. I like De Cecco for their high-quality pasta. Barilla is everywhere in the world available and the quality is ok.
- Parsley — Super fresh parsley. You can use Italian flat parsley or curly parsley, or both mixed.
- Black Pepper — freshly crushed is the best to release the fruity aroma. Consider black pepper a main ingredient in this dish.
- Salt
- Olive Oil — Get cold pressed olive oil. Avoid pomace olive oil. A decent quality olive oil adds fruity and spice to your pasta.
- Parmesan — Try to get real Parmigiano Reggiano Italian hard cheese. It doesn't come cheap, but it will definitely make this dish special. If you can't get real aged Parmigiano Reggiano, get regular Parmesan cheese from your grocery store but know that this is just processed cheese.
- Lemon Juice and Zest — Get lemons which haven't been sprayed with pesticides because you want to use the zest in your food.
How to make it?
Step 1
Boil pasta in salt water. Strain when done cooking.
Step 2
While the pasta is cooking, prepare fresh ingredients.
Zest and juice the lemon and chop parsley.
Step 3
Stir olive oil, parsley, lemon juice, salt, and pepper into boiled pasta.
Garnish with lemon zest (and Parmesan optional).
Serve up.
📖 Recipe
Olive Oil Lemon Parsley Pasta Recipe
Ingredients
To cook the Pasta
- 10 cups Water
- 1 Teaspoon Salt
- 3½ cups Pasta uncooked, *see Notes
To make Pasta meal
- 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice freshly squeezed
- ½ bunch Parsley with stems, *see Notes
- 2 Tablespoon Olive Oil *see Notes
- ¼ Teaspoon Black Pepper freshly ground is best
- Salt to taste
To Garnish
- Lemon Zest grated to garnish, *see Notes
- 2 Tablespoon Parmesan (optional) *see Notes
Instructions
To cook the Pasta
- Pour water into your pot and mix in the salt. Keep over a medium-high heat covered until your water boils.10 cups Water, 1 Teaspoon Salt
- Stir the pasta into your hot boiling water and mix it well. Cook pasta to the desired texture (to the bite or soft) uncovered over a medium-high heat setting for about 8–12 mins (follow pasta packet instructions). Stir occasionally so that the pasta doesn't get stuck at the bottom of the pan.3½ cups Pasta
- Strain pasta when it's done cooking.
To assemble the Pasta meal
- While the pasta is boiling, prepare your fresh ingredients. Zest and juice lemon. Keep zest aside.1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
- Cut off parsley stems and chop garlic small.½ bunch Parsley
- Keep all ingredients, including oil and seasoning, ready.¼ Teaspoon Black Pepper, Salt, 2 Tablespoon Olive Oil
- Pour oil to the pasta. Add chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper to that and mix your pasta well.
Garnish
- Garnish your pasta with lemon zest. Topping with Parmesan is optional.Lemon Zest
- Serve up.
Notes
- Pick a pasta type that you like. I recommend spiral pasta, fussili pasta or rotini pasta shapes for this dish because the olive oil and seasoning cover well the spiral-shaped pasta types.
- ½ bunch parsley with stems = 1 cup loose parsley without stems or ½ cup chopped, or 30 grams chopped parsley.
- For the best quality olive oil, get cold pressed small batch produced. If you need to go budget, get an extra virgin olive oil from an affordable but known brand. Avoid pomace olive oil as it is heavily refined, artificially flavored, colored and might not contain real olives.
- Parmesan is optional if you are plant-based. I like to add freshly grated Parmesan. If you want quality, get only Parmigiano Reggiano from Italy. If you are on a budget, you can use the Parmesan from the store, but know that this is not parmigiano and Parmesan doesn't exist in Italy.
- Grate your lemon skin with a knife to make lemon zest. Only use untreated (pesticide-free) lemons when using the zest in your food. Bio or organic labels sometimes are also pesticide-free, but this is not the case all over the world. Check with your country’s organic food laws.
Nutrition
Serving Ideas
Lemon parsley and olive oil are relatively light fresh summer flavors and the simplicity in this Mediterranean inspired dish should be underlined bold.
Therefore, I prefer to keep things simple and to enhance this dish with a small vegetable side dish salad.
A small white radish salad, a shredded carrot salad, a basic kohlrabi salad, a shredded turnip salad or a lettuce salad can enhance your meal greatly.
Add homemade crunchy baguette bread to that or a wholegrain bread, such as my spelt flour bread, and you have a complete and satisfying meal.
I use the bread to soak up excess olive oil. It's soooo goood!
Storing
Keep leftovers in an airtight container. I like to use rectangular glassware which can be closed with a flexible clip lid (IKEA style ones).
Those glass containers can be stacked over each other in the fridge or freezer. They can be placed in the oven to reheat food or in the microwave.
The parsley pasta keeps well for about 7 days in the cool fridge.
Shake the closed container to mix the olive oil and seasoning with the pasta before opening and eating the paste.
This makes for a great meal-prepping weekday work lunch meal, and you can also freeze the prepared pasta in batches.
To reheat from the fridge, just keep in the oven, microwave or on the stove top to warm up in a non-stick pan.
To thaw and heat from the freeze, keep pasta overnight in the fridge and reheat as instructed, OR keep frozen pasta to warm up gradually and get hot in the oven.
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