One pot pastas have been an obsession of mine ever since I saw them pop up on the internet. I’m pretty sure the first one I ever came across was Martha’s, but I never actually got around to making it. Years went by and I finally, finally got around to giving one pot pasta a try and oh my gosh, I can honestly say I do not know why I went all those years without making it.
To be honest, I was a little skeptical of one-pot pastas. I didn’t really understand how everything could come together. I’ve always, always cooked pasta separately – even when I’m making a noodle soup, I’ll cook the noodles on the side and then add them into the broth. So it was with a bit of hesitation that I made this. I went with some super spring-time flavours because the past week has just been absolutely gorgeous. Of course today is incredibly gloomy again – spring isn’t here just yet.
While I’m waiting for those bright and fresh spring days, I’ll be filling up on one-pot meals. This came together quickly and I was really pleased with the silkiness of the sauce. Lots of pasta recipes actually call for a bit of pasta water to bind – the starch that is released when pasta is cooked is similar to the starch released when you make a risotto, so the theory behind one pot pasta is sound. The result: a silky, slightly sticky thick sauce flavoured with garlic, red pepper flakes, much like the classic aglio e olio. I didn’t use any cheese in this recipe and I found that I didn’t miss it at all. Don’t forget the squeeze of lemon at the end – it adds just the right amount of brightness and acid to go with the scallops.
I hope you guys give this recipe a try! And to encourage you even more, I’m hosting a giveaway of the braiser I used to make it! See below for details.
One-Pot Lemon Scallop Pea Spaghetti Recipe inspired by The Faux Martha
serves 3-4
prep time: 10 minutes
cook time: 15 minutes
total time: 25 minutes
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 lb small scallops
- 4 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 2 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken stock
- 1/2 pound spaghetti
- 1 lemon, zested and juiced (about 1/4 cup juice)
- 3/4 cup peas, defrosted
- 1/4 cup roughly chopped flat leaf parsley
- red pepper flakes, to serve
- salt and freshly ground pepper
Pat the scallops dry and season all sides generously with salt and pepper. Heat up a small amount of olive oil over medium high heat and cook the scallops until golden brown on both sides, 1-2 minutes per side. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Add the remaining olive oil to the pan and turn the heat to medium. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes, and cook, stirring, until the garlic is slightly golden, but not brown, about 1 minute. Add the chicken stock and uncooked pasta. Bring to a boil and then turn down to low. Cover and cook for 8 minutes.
Remove the cover and simmer to reduce the sauce, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the scallops, defrosted peas, lemon juice, lemon zest, and flat leaf parsley. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper to taste and enjoy hot!
Giveaway: I’ve paired up with Le Creuset to give away one gorgeous braiser in the winner’s color of choice! I am seriously in love with mine – it’s perfect for making one-pot pastas!
Enter: To enter, leave a comment below with your favorite pasta memory. I want to hear ALL the details! I’ll randomly choose a winner and notify them through email. Open to US residents only. (Sorry international friends!) Also, if you’re feeling so inclined, please vote for me on the Munchies. It won’t get you an extra entry, but it will be bonus karma! Contest ends March 4th at 12pm PST. Good luck!
Update: Congrats Ace! Get ready for the one pot pastas because a braiser is heading your way! Keep your eyes peel for an email from me!
Looks so wonderful Stephanie! I’ve got to say my favourite pasta memory was in Florence when I went to cuatro leoni with my mum and she was telling me that they had a crazy delicious pear and asparagus pasta dish and I was like WHAAAT NO but I tried it and it was so heavenly: creamy asparagus sauce with pear ravioli: sweetness encased in fresh pasta with gratings of parmesan: amazing!
I think the first pasta memory THAT comes to my mind is the day I saw the movie the Lady and the Tramp… I know, It was a long time ago, but This was the first time as a Child, That I felt the urge to Eat pasta and to learn how to cook it…. Heheh years later I was having fun trowing the spaghetti to the wall to check If It was al dente, and attempted to make spaguetti bolognese. I was so proud at my self, my first bowl of pasta with long long noodles and red meaty tomatoeay sauce…. Mmmm powdery parmessan…since I did not have the profound knowledge of parmigiano regiano… And Yes, probably was a bit over cooked heheh but to me It tasted so good and gave me the same cozy feeling than the avene of the movie. : )
My favorite memory was making fresh pasta with my dad. He was making his famous sauce that took hours. He said no need to fuss, just use dry pasta. I said, if your taking the time to make this sauce, I can make fresh pasta. We all agreed, the fresh pasta elevated the dish.
One day I was struggling to come up with ideas for dinner. I had just started dating this beautiful young woman and wanted to do nothing more than to impress her. I had previously made some delicious parchment wrapped fish and mushrooms with a soy ginger sauce. We both loved the fresh healthy taste. Now I was tasked with stepping my game up another notch to keep her impressed with my culinary abilities. After trolling the internet for hours I decided I was going to attempt to make my own Gnocchi. After lots a research… started boiling potatoes. Having a Sicilian grandfather and a mother whom knows here way around the kitchen made me into the savvy cook I am today. After allowing the potatoes to cool I added the flour and started to slightly kneed the dough. Rolling it out into 3/4″ round strips and chopping that into 1″ pieces. Honestly, other than making a mess with flour, these are quite easy to make. I then threw them in boiling water. The key is once they float to the top to remove them as they are ready to eat. I made a quick sauce and we had an amazing dinner. To this day she was/is impressed with my Gnocchi and now we are passionately in love with the desire to wed.
As an asian american, I don’t necessarily have that many “pasta memories”, but there was one time in my life that pasta really brought the whole family together.
It must have been about 15 years ago, and my family had gotten adventurous in their cooking, probably because my parents had gone to Italy the year before that.
So one night, my dad decides that he wants to cook pasta putanesca. Being the late 90s/early 00s, the emphasis on home cooked and good ingredients was not as popular as it is today. And we probably didn’t have internet, so he was really just winging it.
Into the pot went the putanesca sauce, which was storebought and just a jar of tomato sauce with capers and olives, another jar of sliced black pearl olives, and then chicken drumsticks. Sounds appetizing right? Well things were just getting started…
We dig into the meal, and my brother and I are not impressed. Looking back, he must have left a little too much of that olive juice from the canned olives, and it made the sauce so bitter. We also had no idea what capers were, so these little bursts of briny flavor were not what we wanted in our spaghetti. Our parents are there, telling us to just eat up and that it’s good for us, when one of us takes a bite out of a drumstick, only to see bright pink staring back at us.
My dad has owned a restaurant, he’s cooked as long as I can remember, and he’s also pretty good at it. But he is also stubborn. So he wouldn’t accept that these drumsticks were undercooked. He kept telling everyone at the table “don’t worry, it’s just pink because we cooked it in the sauce”. So we eat this meal up as good children do when they’re told, and everything is fine.
We go to bed, and probably simultaneously, everyone gets up at 3 or 4 in the morning. Some of us are throwing up, some are running into the bathroom to use the toilet, it’s completely disgusting in the room my brother and I shared. We were in a bunkbed at the time, and there was definitely a drip involved…
To be honest, I don’t think anyone has had a putanesca dish since… and while it’s not the happiest memory in the world, it’s pretty funny in my book.
I went camping and we made spaghetti for dinner. Just basic spaghetti with jarred sauce and pre-made meatballs. It was good, as everything is good when you’re camping. The next day, we reheated it in a pan so that the sauce was kinda dry and sticking to the pasta and it was… so amazing. Again, we were camping, so who knows how good it was, but that reheated pasta was some of the best I’ve ever had.
My favorite pasta memory is sitting at my grandma’s table while she rolled out sheets of pasta for home made raviolis. I was in awe at how a mountain of flour and egg could come together into a mass and make sheets of noodles. I helped how I could which meant sitting there talking to her and asking her questions. She would combine the ricotta and spinach and I would be in charge of mixing it. It took some serious arm power for me. Then she would dot the long ribbons of pasta and seal them with her hand roller sealer which I thought was fascinating, I loved the squiggley edges. After that she save them for dinner or place them on a cookie sheet to freeze. Grandma Rose knew she was sick but hated going to the doctor. Once she was diagnosed with leukemia – and unbeknownst to her children – she set to work making the largest stockpile of raviolis. Towards the end, my dad told me while they were at her death bed she left very specific instructions on how she wanted the entire family to get together and eat her raviolis that she had frozen one last time and share our happiest memories of her. It was so bitter sweet and to this day, I’ve never been able to master her recipe but I guess that’s true for most cooks. It never tastes as good as mom’s/grandma’s/dad’s/etc.
My best pasta memory has been learning to make my Mom’s lasagna. She adds a couple of interesting ingredients like olives and shredded chicken, but the completed product comes out amazing: cheesy, saucy, and full of love.
My favorite pasta memory just happened this week! My fiancee got me the pasta attachment that fits on her Kitchenaid mixer, so we attempted to make spaghetti. We rolled out the dough to the recommended thickness for spaghetti and then ran it through the cutter. What I got was extremely THIN flat noodles. I cooked them for the hell of it, and when I took them out they were like the noodles from Cup O’ Noodles! It wasn’t great pasta but it was nostalgic anyhow.
Favourite pasta memory – So tricky to choose one! I think it has to be going back home to Bangkok (from New York) to visit my family and going to a family Brunch gathering with a DIY pasta stall. There was marinara, alfredo, pesto sauce but in true Thai fashion there was a ‘Spagetti Kee Mao’ which is simply the option to blend spagettii, garlic, oil, thai basil, thai chillies, more thai chillies, peppercorns, shrimp, and some red pepper (and I added some mushrooms). Minus the cooking of the noodles it was all made in one “WOK” to let the flavours blend together. Simple ingredients, addictive pasta, mouth on fire – a great welcome home!