Puttanesca Pasta Nada

By Dwight Garner

Updated June 14, 2024

Puttanesca Pasta Nada
Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Samantha Seneviratne.
Total Time
30 minutes
Prep Time
5 minutes
Cook Time
25 minutes
Rating
5(581)
Comments
Read comments

“In normal life, ‘simplicity’ is synonymous with ‘easy to do,’” Bill Buford wrote in “Heat,” his 2006 book, “but when a chef uses the word, it means ‘take a lifetime to learn.’” That’s true much of the time. But if you take care, a dish as simple as pasta with finely chopped black olives and anchovies can have a chef-like impact with minimum learning and minimum fuss. This dish resets your taste buds. No fancy shopping needed.

Featured in: Pasta Nada: The Culinary Art of Making Something From Nothing

  • or to save this recipe.

  • Subscriber benefit: give recipes to anyone
    As a subscriber, you have 10 gift recipes to give each month. Anyone can view them - even nonsubscribers. Learn more.
    Subscribe

  • Print Options

Advertisement

Ingredients

Yield:As many servings as you want
  • Pasta
  • Salt
  • Any combination of anchovies, capers, tuna, black olives, garlic and tomatoes
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and black pepper
  • Any combination of fresh herbs, such as basil, parsley, sage or oregano
  • Freshly grated Parmesan
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Cooking Newsletter illustration

Opt out or contact us anytime. See our Privacy Policy.

Opt out or contact us anytime. See our Privacy Policy.

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Cook pasta in salted water to make a lo-fi variation on the theme of puttanesca. Instead of employing each of the classic ingredients above, try just, let’s say, black olives and anchovies. Or, use just finely minced garlic and a few capers. Or good canned tuna and tomatoes. These flavors cry out to be tested in variations.

  2. Step 2

    Heat the ingredients of your choice in olive oil and toss in the cooked pasta with some of its cooking liquid. Season with salt and pepper and top with herbs and Parmesan.

Ratings

5 out of 5
581 user ratings
Your rating

or to rate this recipe.

Have you cooked this?

or to mark this recipe as cooked.

Private Notes

Leave a Private Comment on this recipe and see it here.

Comments

N.M.P.

When I was 18, I worked at a coffee shop owned by two Italian men. They taught me how to make a killer espresso, and how to smoke cigarettes while reading the NY Times and listening to Leonard Cohen or the Stones. They also taught me what "Puttanesca" meant. They explained that after a long night of hard work, a woman would take whatever she could find in her Italian kitchen (the staples) and make a hearty dinner. 1. "Pedigree" refers to people & animals, not pasta. 2. Sex work is work.

Judy S.

My favorite instant pasta meal with three ingredients. Tuna in olive oil, a jar of marinated artichoke hearts, bowtie pasta. Just heat the tuna with its oil and artichoke hearts with all their oil. Toss with pasta. You can add good olives, sundried tomatoes, fresh herbs, etc. Or not.

Eileen

This is my 20 minute dinner: garlic, anchovy, raisins, capers, olives, sometimes artichoke hearts, a little caper brine. I'm making myself hungry.

Stantonstreetkid

What a fabulous, flavorful and fun dish! Prep time wasn’t 5 minutes; peeling the garlic alone took more than that, but it was worth the few extra minutes. I’ll just allow for the additional time. Had both pitted Kalamata & green olives with herbs de Provence in the house, so I used them along with lotsa garlic, some halved cherry tomatoes and anchovies. At the very end, I tossed in a little arugula. A perfect dish for company: not a big mess & it looks gorgeous topped w Parmesan. Mmmmm.

Old granny

This is a magic recipe. Delicious no matter what you do.

Erc

This was great! But I did end up heating the anchovies with butter as the sauce. And sautéed a whole garlic with a sliced onion and chopped up the peeled tomatoes from a can (not all the purée) cherry tomatoes would have been great but didn’t have them at the time.

Private comments are only visible to you.

Recipe Tags

Advertisement

or to save this recipe.