Pasta with Fresh Tomatoes, Peppers and Basil

Pasta with Tomatoes and Vegetables

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In early fall, when large ripe tomatoes fresh from the garden are at their best, we make pasta with tomatoes. The dish is delicious and extremely easy to make. Large tomatoes peel easily with a knife, the way you peel potatoes. If they have few seeds (there are such varieties), it is enough to chop the flesh with a knife. As a bonus, we add fresh garlic and basil, bell pepper and chili to the sauce.

Any pasta works for this dish. We prefer short tubes or similar shapes. Real maccheroni, by the way, are rarely found in stores. But the general word applies to all pasta, which widens your options. Penne and fusilli work well, as do other tubular and twisted shapes. In a pinch, you can break tubular bucatini into pieces.

Short pasta with a channel in the middle, or thinly folded pieces of dough, can be made at home. A simple and inexpensive pasta press is readily available. It is a handy, versatile kitchen tool for dough. With it you can make flat pasta sheets for lasagna, for making ravioli or even dumplings, as well as form various shaped pastas.

Durum wheat flour is not rare either, and making homemade pasta for breakfast takes 10-15 mins. If you only have a machine for rolling dough into thin sheets, I suggest making garganelli: all you need is an ordinary fork, whose tines create the ridges on the surface of the dough. By the way, raw fresh pasta keeps in the fridge for a while, so you can make it a few days ahead.

The surface and shape of the pasta hold the sauce well, even if it is not very thick. The simplest sauce is chopped vegetables with olive oil and spices. The sauce is cooked until the ingredients are done, then it should lose some of its moisture and thicken. Thickening it with additions is very rare. As a rule, the vegetable mixture simmers uncovered for a while, losing moisture. At the very end, as it is mixed with the pasta, fresh herbs are added to the tomatoes.

More with tomatoes and pasta

Ingredients

4 servings

  • Short pasta (macaroni, penne, fusilli, strozzapreti, etc.) 350 g
  • Water for boiling the pasta 3.5 l
  • Salt for boiling the pasta 25 g
  • Olive oil 2 tbsp
  • Large ripe tomatoes 3-4
  • Red bell pepper 1-2
  • Chili pepper 1
  • Garlic 1-2 cloves
  • Basil (fresh) 0.5 bunch
  • Dried oregano 0.5 tsp
  • Salt to taste
  • Ground black pepper to taste
  • Sugar (if the tomatoes are sour) a pinch
  • For serving
  • Fresh tomato, cherry tomatoes optional

Step-by-step recipe

Preparation

  1. Pasta with tomatoes cooks quickly, so prepare all the vegetables for the sauce ahead of time. Choose large ripe tomatoes with only small pockets of seeds; there are such varieties in stores. They are big and, as a rule, very ripe. You can recognize them by their irregular shape. The amount of hot pepper in the sauce is up to you. Do add the garlic.

    Vegetables for the sauce.

  2. While the tomato sauce is cooking, boil the pasta in 3.5 l of boiling water with 25 g of salt (7 g per 1 l of water) until al dente. The cooking time is always on the package, and the manufacturer guarantees the right doneness at that time. Freshly made raw pasta is usually boiled for 5-6 mins.

    I bought a pasta that was new to me, strozzapreti. I knew about it but bought it for the first time. It is a short pasta made of intricately folded strips of dough. It is one of the oldest pastas in Italy, originally from Emilia-Romagna and Marche. It was made by hand, rolling out the dough and folding each piece into a “stick” with a complex cross-section. It is meant for thick sauces and is excellent with a tomato and vegetable ragu.

    Strozzapreti pasta.

Tomato sauce

  1. Seed and clean both the sweet and hot peppers. Chop the red bell pepper finely enough that the pieces are barely noticeable and cook quickly. Chop the hot pepper finely. You can leave it out if you do not like mildly spicy dishes, or replace it with a pinch of coarsely ground dried pepper.

  2. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and fry the chopped pepper over medium heat for 3-4 mins. It should brown lightly.

    Peppers in olive oil.

  3. Peel the tomatoes with a knife, or scald them with boiling water and remove the skin. If the seeds are in large pockets inside, it is better to remove them. Chop the flesh with a knife, fairly coarsely. There is no need to make a puree: let the sauce have noticeable pieces of tomato.

  4. Peel the garlic and chop it with a knife.

  5. Add the tomatoes and garlic to the fried peppers.

    Garlic and tomato pulp.

  6. Salt the vegetables well and season with black pepper. Add 0.5 tsp of dried oregano. Do not add any liquid; tomatoes contain plenty of moisture. By the way, if the tomatoes have a pronounced sour tomato taste, you can add a pinch of sugar.

  7. Fry the tomatoes and vegetables for 3-4 mins.

    How to make tomato sauce.

  8. Cover the pan with a lid and simmer the vegetable sauce over medium heat for 4-5 mins.

  9. Then remove the lid and cook the sauce, stirring, until the excess moisture evaporates and the sauce is thick enough. Add more salt and pepper to the vegetables to taste.

    Thick sauce.

Pasta with sauce

  1. Take the pan off the heat.

  2. Drain the pasta, cooked al dente, in a colander and let the water run off.

  3. Combine the pasta and the tomato sauce, then toss gently.

  4. Finely chop the basil leaves and mix them with the pasta and sauce.

    Pasta and tomato sauce.

  5. Divide the pasta with tomatoes among plates. Serve it hot. If you like, add slices of fresh tomato and cherry tomatoes to the pasta. Garnish the dish with a sprig of basil.

    Homemade pasta with tomatoes is a delicious dish for a quick breakfast. Enjoy!

    homemade pasta with tomatoes

Calories and macros

430 kcal

Serving ≈ 350 g

  • Protein14 g13% of kcal
  • Fat9 g19% of kcal
  • Carbs70 g68% of kcal

100 g123 kcalProtein 3.9 gFat 2.5 gCarbs 19.9 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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