The 5-Ingredient Dinner I Make When It Gets Cold Outside
This 5-ingredient pasta has a silky and brightly colored sauce and comes together in under half an hour.
I’m constantly on the lookout for quick weeknight meals that feel restaurant-quality—it should make a Tuesday feel special without creating a gigantic mess in the kitchen or taking up all of my precious free time.
Enter Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg’s instant classic, "Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables." While there are plenty of excellent recipes packed into this cookbook, the one I keep going back to again and again is the “Kale Sauce with Any Noodle.”
I made tweaks here and there to suit my tastes—adding more garlic, reducing the cheese, using different leafy greens and pasta shapes, and adding lemon and red pepper flakes until I got it just right. It’s garlicky, salty from the Parmesan, and bright from the lemon. It’s crowd pleasing enough for the whole family.
Use the Greens You Have
While McFadden calls for kale, my favorite green to use for this pasta is Swiss chard. It’s easy to prep, cooks quickly, and blends into a super smooth, deep green sauce. But this sauce will work with any winter greens, like lacinato or curly kale, spinach, collard greens, or a mixture of any of these. In fact, it’s an excellent way to use up random greens from a CSA box.
When using chard, I recommend the white or yellow-stemmed leaves. Red-stemmed chard works fine, but it lends the dish a muddy color. If you use spinach, larger more mature varieties work better than baby spinach.
Break Out the Fun Pasta Shapes
Any pasta shape will work here. My preference is for fat, fun shapes like rigatoni, but the smooth texture of the sauce works with many shapes like orecchiette, pappardelle, and spaghetti. It’s also a fun choice for gnocchi or even cheese ravioli.
Since this is a simple dish, I suggest choosing quality pasta and cooking it al dente since the texture will make a noticeable difference.
Recipe Variations
This vegetarian pasta is easy to customize:
- Vegan: Swap the Parmesan cheese for a couple of tablespoons of nutritional yeast.
- Gluten-free: Swap for your favorite gluten-free pasta.
- More lemon: Add a little more flavor and lots of lemon aroma by adding up to 1/2 teaspoon of freshly grated lemon zest to the sauce.
- Add herbs: Add a large handful of fresh basil or parsley leaves to the blender. It’ll contribute fresh flavor and even more bright green color.
- Extra creamy: Add a splash or two of heavy cream when tossing together the pasta and sauce.
- Extra cheesy: Add a large spoonful of ricotta and stir it in with the sauce.
More Quick-Cooking Pasta Recipes
Prep the greens:
Bring a large pot of water up to a boil.
Rinse the Swiss chard well and shake them over the sink to dry a bit. Place a chard leaf flat on a cutting board, and run a sharp knife along either side of the stem from top to bottom, removing the stem and leaving the green leaf in two long pieces. Repeat with the remaining leaves, cutting the extra-large pieces crosswise into smaller pieces.
Cook the garlic:
In a small skillet over medium-low heat, add the olive oil. Once hot, add the garlic. Cook on one side until lightly browned and fragrant, about 3 minutes. Flip over the garlic and add the red pepper flakes. Cook until the garlic is light brown on the other side, 2 to 3 more minutes.
Scrape the garlic, pepper flakes, and the oil into a blender to cool a bit.
Cook the greens:
When the water boils, generously season it with salt. Add the prepared greens, pushing them down with tongs to submerge into the water.
Boil until wilted and dark green, 2 to 3 minutes. Use tongs to retrieve the greens without draining the pot. Transfer them to a strainer to cool and drain.
Leave the water boiling in the pot. You’ll use it to cook the pasta.
Cook the pasta:
Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook until al dente according to the package directions. Set aside 1 cup of pasta water and drain the pasta.
Make the sauce:
Add the cooked greens, 1/2 teaspoon salt, lemon juice, and 1/4 cup pasta water to the blender with the garlic and chili oil.
Keep the lid of the blender slightly ajar and cover it with a kitchen towel. Blend until smooth and silky, adding more pasta water a tablespoon at a time if needed. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt, keeping in mind that the cheese will add some saltiness.
Assemble the pasta:
Return the pasta to the pot and top with the sauce. Add the Parmesan cheese and toss to coat until the cheese melts.
Add the reserved pasta water, a splash at a time, to achieve a silky consistency. It should effortlessly coat the noodles.
The sauce will continue to firm up, so make it slightly looser than you’d like it. You’ll most likely end up using between 1/4 to 2/3 cup of pasta water.
Serve:
Divide into individual servings and garnish with a sprinkle of Parmesan.
