Skip to main content

Pantry Pasta Puttanesca

4.5

(20)

Pasta puttanesca in a blue bowl with a golden fork and knife.
Photo by Chelsea Kyle, Prop Styling by Beatrice Chastka, Food Styling by Olivia Mack Anderson

Keep these ingredients stocked in your pantry, and a briny, flavor-packed, classic Italian pasta will always be a dinner option.

Recipe information

  • Total Time

    35 minutes

  • Yield

    4 servings

Ingredients

1 lb. linguine or other long pasta
Kosher salt
1 (14-oz.) can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1/4 cup capers, drained
6 oil-packed anchovy fillets
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
1/3 cup pitted Kalamata olives, halved
2 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
6 oz. oil-packed tuna

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water, stirring occasionally, until al dente. Drain pasta, reserving 1 cup pasta cooking liquid; return pasta to pot.

    Step 2

    While pasta cooks, pour tomatoes into a fine-mesh sieve set over a medium bowl. Shake to release as much juice as possible, then let tomatoes drain in sieve, collecting juices in bowl, until ready to use.

    Step 3

    Heat 1/4 cup oil in a large deep-sided skillet over medium-high. Add capers and cook, swirling pan occasionally, until they burst and are crisp, about 3 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer capers to a paper towel–lined plate, reserving oil in skillet.

    Step 4

    Combine anchovies, tomato paste, and drained tomatoes in skillet. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes begin to caramelize and anchovies start to break down, about 5 minutes. Add collected tomato juices, olives, oregano, and red pepper flakes and bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until sauce is slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Add pasta, remaining 1/4 cup oil, and 3/4 cup pasta cooking liquid to pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring and adding remaining 1/4 cup pasta cooking liquid to loosen if needed, until sauce is thickened and emulsified, about 2 minutes. Flake tuna into pasta and toss to combine.

    Step 5

    Divide pasta among plates. Top with fried capers.

Read More
This marinara sauce is great tossed with any pasta for a quick and easy weeknight dinner that will leave you thinking, “Why didn’t anyone try this sooner?”
Spaghetti is a common variation in modern Thai cooking. It’s so easy to work with and absorbs the garlicky, spicy notes of pad kee mao well.
An ex-boyfriend’s mom—who emigrated from Colombia—made the best meat sauce—she would fry sofrito for the base and simply add cooked ground beef, sazón, and jarred tomato sauce. My version is a bit more bougie—it calls for caramelized tomato paste and white wine—but the result is just as good.
In this lasagna, soft layers of pasta and béchamel are interspersed with a rich tomato sauce laden with hearty Mediterranean vegetables.
Cabbage is the unsung hero of the winter kitchen—available anywhere, long-lasting in the fridge, and super-affordable. It’s also an excellent partner for pasta.
This pasta has some really big energy about it. It’s so extra, it’s the type of thing you should be eating in your bikini while drinking a magnum of rosé, not in Hebden Bridge (or wherever you live), but on a beach on Mykonos.
This sauce is slightly magical. The texture cloaks pasta much like a traditional meat sauce does, and the flavors are deep and rich, but it’s actually vegan!
This is what I call a fridge-eater recipe. The key here is getting a nice sear on the sausage and cooking the tomato down until it coats the sausage and vegetables well.