Spaghetti with No-Cook Sauce

You can tell by the streak of tomato recipes here lately, I’m in the thick of it. And today is no exception. I made this for dinner last night, and if you have a box of spaghetti and some good tomatoes you’re half way there. What you see is a tangle of spaghetti, olives, nuts, vegetables, and torn mozzarella in a no-cook, lemon-zested tomato sauce. It’s bright, summery, colorful food, easy to adapt based on what you have on hand. The key? Make it on an extra hot night when tomato season is at its maximum. And don’t even mess around if your tomatoes aren’t on point.

So Many Variations!

This is a quintessential pantry meal. I added olives, pine nuts, and a bit of cheese to the base ingredients of spaghetti and tomatoes, but you can experiment with endless other directions. I love the pine nut component here, but toasted almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, or cashew would all be great. You could do a spicy version by adding a dollop of harissa to the sauce, or some chile flakes, or a tablespoon of toasted sesame chile oil. On the vegetable front, you see string beans pictured (because that's whats coming out of my garden right now), but load up on anything from broccoli and cauliflower florets, or asparagus - basically, any quick cooking veg that you can throw in the pasta water at the last minute.

The Spaghetti

Use your favorite spaghetti noodle here. I love a traditional spaghetti noodle, don't get me wrong, but one of the big surprises to me over the past few years is how good some of the whole grain and pulse-based pastas are. There is a wide range of brands around, so you'll need to experiment. My advice on this front is to "date around" until you find a few brands and shapes you like. For day to day pasta eating when you compare nutritional labels, the noodles made with more whole ingredients can deliver significantly more vitamins, minerals, fiber, protein and the like. So it's worth it to play around.