What’s for Dinner? BLT Pasta

BLT Pasta -- quick, easy, and delicious! Perfect for a busy weeknight dinner

The Occasion: A quick family-pleasing meal for a busy weeknight. It’s got all the basic ingredients for success – pasta, cheese, and BACON! Plus it’s fast and easy, so let’s get started. 

Why It Works: Pure comfort food. It’s a mashed-up version of two old favorites – pasta with tomato sauce, and a bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich. Just kicked up a notch or three.

Serve With: Green salad, or steamed broccoli. There are plenty of carbs in this dish already thanks to the pasta, so you don’t really need bread … but a piece of garlic bread alongside might be awesome, just sayin’. Click on the photos to enlarge them and read the captions.

The Verdict: Easy-peasy and extremely satisfying. We’ll be making this again, for sure. The recipe calls for penne and watercress but I used rotini and arugula. Turned out fine. As with most pasta dishes, you can make substitutions with ease. The key thing is to use some pasta water at the end to help create a nice saucy finish.  

Print The Recipe- BLT Pasta
File Size:	503 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

---

BLT Pasta
Recipe from Cooking Light, adapted with permission from Back Pocket Pasta: Inspired Dinners to Cook on the Fly, by Colu Henry
 
INGREDIENTS:

• 1 tablespoon plus 3/8 tsp. kosher salt, divided
• 10 ounces uncooked mezze rigatoni or penne pasta
• 2 ounces slab bacon, cut into 1/2-inch dice
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 pound red or yellow cherry tomatoes, halved (about 3 cups)
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
• 5 ounces watercress, coarsely chopped
• 1 ounce pecorino Romano cheese, grated

DIRECTIONS:

• Bring a large saucepan filled with water and 1 tablespoon salt to a boil. Add pasta and cook 10 minutes or until al dente. Drain in a colander over a bowl, reserving 1 cup pasta cooking liquid.
• Place bacon and olive oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-low; cook 8 minutes or until the bacon is crisp, stirring occasionally. Remove bacon from pan (do not wipe out pan).
• Heat pan over medium. Add tomatoes, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper to drippings in pan; cook 5 minutes or until tomatoes are tender and almost melt, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Stir in half of the cooked bacon.
• Increase heat to medium-high. Add pasta to pan; toss to coat. Add 1/2 cup reserved pasta cooking liquid and watercress, stirring until watercress wilts. Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup reserved pasta cooking liquid to pan as needed to loosen sauce.
• Divide pasta mixture among 4 shallow bowls; sprinkle evenly with remaining 1/8 teaspoon salt and remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
• Top servings evenly with remaining half of bacon and cheese.

Twice the fun - BLT Pasta times two!